


All’s Fair in Love and (Prank) War

by Oceans_Away



Category: Lore Olympus (Webcomic)
Genre: Anniversary, Ares in a tank top, Ares is a sucker for Aphrodite, Decorum please, Eros is very tired, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Idiots in Love, Its about respect, Nonsense, Prank Wars, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Seduction and trickery, Swearing, romcom, sex references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:20:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26200279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oceans_Away/pseuds/Oceans_Away
Summary: When Ares forgets his 500th anniversary with Aphrodite, she exacts revenge. Ares can't take it lying down, and soon Eros finds himself in the middle of a prank war between Olympus' most devoted disasters, while trying to manage new feelings for Ampelus he really wasn't ready to admit.Style note: the fic is partially narrated by Eros catching up with the recently married Persephone on videocall, every time that's happening it will be in [ ].Thank you to the dear @chinchela_art (Instagram and Patreon) and her wonderful community of patrons for the Prank War prompt and generally being the bestest people to hang out with <3 Go and feast your eyes on her saucy, saucy art!
Relationships: Aphrodite/Ares (Lore Olympus), Eros/Psyche (Lore Olympus)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 39





	1. Sewing Dissent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monday. Aphrodite is furious when Ares forgets their coming anniversary. She takes his appearance at a TGOEM fundraiser as an opportunity to teach him a lesson.

[Hey Persie, it’s Eros! Wait, let me turn my camera on. Hi, Pretty! How’s Daddy Death? 

I know you asked me not to call him that, but let me float this for you: you start calling him that. 

What? He’d totally love it! 

Yeah, I’m fine. It’s been kind of a week. 

Did I just call to tell you the whole story from start to finish without taking a breath? Maybe. But come on, don’t tell me you don’t wanna hear it. 

OK, elevator pitch: Momma and Dad had a prank war. 

Who won, you ask? No one. 

PERSIE, NO ONE FUCKING WINS WHEN MY PARENTS HAVE A PRANK WAR. 

OK, I’m cool, I’m fine. Tell you what, let’s start at the beginning…]

Aphrodite hummed merrily to herself as she tugged the enormous red bow neat on the large gift box on the coffee table. This was, by far, the best present she had ever got for Ares. It’s not that anniversaries were a competition, but if they were, she’d stomp him. And this Saturday was 500 years; that's something extra special. That said, her big, hunky slice of lemon cake knew her better than anyone else in all the realms. He might be, well, a little indelicate at times. But she was bubbling with excitement at what was coming for her. He hadn’t said a word, kept a completely straight face this whole time, what could be brewing behind those wildfire eyes... 

“Hey, Momma.” Eros came wandering into the living room, blowing on drying nail polish, a roller pinned into his fringe.

“Baby Bear!” Aphrodite beamed at him and beckoned him over.

“Whoah, is this Dad’s big 500 gift?” Eros scooted to her side, bobbing down onto the sofa. “Nice rosette bow, by the way.”

Aphrodite grinned with pride.

“What did you get him?”

Aphrodite wriggled her fingers like a magician. "I found a box of all our old BDSM toys - floggers, pinwheels, clamps, the works - and I took them all the way to Germania and had Wayland craft them into new armour for him. Now whenever he's away fighting, he'll be wearing the reminder of what a tough guy he is and what's waiting for him at home. Sweet, right?"

Eros wrinkled his nose. “I super wish I hadn’t asked. Remind me to provide everyone with noise cancelling headphones this weekend.”

“You will need them.”

“Bleh.”

The front door banged its distinctive Ares bang. Aphrodite trilled like a dove and with a flourish of her hands the gift box vanished in a pop of purple sparkle. Ares came lumbering through the door, carrying a to-go cup of black coffee, the dark, bitter smell filling the room.

“There’s my man!” Aphrodite sprang over the back of the couch and floated towards him.

“BABE, HOT COFFEE!”

The cup splashed and skittered across the hardwood floor as Aphrodite landed in his arms, her legs wrapping round his waist and her wrists crossing at the back of his neck.

The surprise on Ares’ face turned to laughter and he nipped the end of her nose. “Harlot.”

“Yep!” She pecked his lips. “You excited for this weekend?”

Ares kept smiling dopily at her. “This weekend?”

Aphrodite slumped a little in the cradle of his powerful arms. “Yes, Honey Bear, this weekend.”

Ares kissed her cheek and mumbled against it, his eyes closing softly and his voice husking. “What’s happening this weekend, Beautiful?”

Eros’ eyes shot wide and his pulse clunked.

Aphrodite whipped her head back. “Don’t you know?”

Ares raised his eyebrows innocently. “No?”

Aphrodite’s eye twitched.

“Soda Pop, what’s going on?”

Her jaw set.

“Come on, you know I’m shit with dates, just tell me.”

White lightning crackled in the ends of her hair.

“Sweetheart, if you don’t tell me, I’m just gonna have to kiss you, and you know how you hate that.”

“HMPH!” Aphrodite vanished with an indignant squeak in a furious cloud of shimmering, violet smoke.

Ares coughed and wafted the smoke away.

“Dad!” Eros railed, his roller bouncing in his hair, “How could you not know this? It’s your 500th anniversary with Momma on Saturday! She’s so excited! I can’t believe you forgot!” Eros knelt up on the couch and cast his hands into the air.

A vulpine, evil grin crept across Ares’ face. Eros went cold.

“I didn’t forget,” Ares said in a low, devious rumble, “I’m just making her think I did. I’ve got a huge surprise planned for her and it’s gonna be even bigger if she thinks I haven’t planned anything.”

Eros groaned and put his face in his hands, speaking muffled through them, already tired. “Dad, she’s going to hate that, just tell her you remembered and you have a surprise planned.”

“Son, did Odysseus stick a note on the Trojan Horse saying ‘We have a surprise planned’? No. Or it wouldn’t have worked.”

“Oh My Gods, please tell me your plan is not to have a bunch of soldiers leap out of a huge wooden animal and murder my mother. Or do a strip tease.”

“No!”

“You’ve done worse!”

“Rude!” Ares ran his hand suavely through his custard curls. “I am a master of anniversaries, Baby Bear. I am gonna burn this anniversary to the ground, I’m gonna salt the ground of this anniversary, I’m gonna sack this anniversary’s capital and blow up it’s walls with Greek Fire.”

Eros looked at him flatly.

“Or, you know, a less violent analogy…”

Eros pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is going to backfire.”

“No, Baby, it’s gold, she’s gonna love me for this.”

“She won’t!” Eros flapped desperately. “She will leave you! And when my poor, tiny, innocent siblings ask me why we live in a box under a bridge now, I am going to have no choice but to tell them that it’s because our father is a maniac and a moron!”

Ares waved his hand dismissively at Eros, his expression infuriatingly relaxed. “Look, Kiddo, maybe you just don’t understand romance.”

“I PROFESSIONALLY UNDERSTAND ROMANCE, FATHER. I AM A LITERAL ROMANCE EXPERT.” 

Ares snorted. “Yeah, yeah, and we’re all very proud. But you know what they say, sometimes things need an amateur touch.”

“THAT IS NOT A SAYING.”

“Anyway, I gotta shower, your Nana’s making me present some cheque to TGOEM later. Keep it zipped, OK?” Ares rolled his eyes at the very concept of eternal maidenhood, swivelled on his heel, and ambled out of the living room.

“DON’T YOU WALK AWAY FROM ME, YOUNG MAN!”

Eros scrambled to follow Ares, twisted his foot on one of the plush couch cushions, and tumbled over the back into a heap by the coffee spill.

His roller spun across the floor.

[So, you see, Persie, why I was stressed. And this was only Monday morning. Anyhoo, I didn’t wanna tell Momma Dad’s big secret. For all it was a trash idea, I could tell it meant a lot to the dumbass to give her a big surprise. So I go upstairs to check on Momma. I open the bedroom door and she’s sat on the bed and her face is all stormy, and the kind of colour you only get on a really choice heliotrope. And she’s sewing. She’s sewing his uniform jacket. I ask her if it’s ripped. Oh, oh, Persie, it is not ripped.]

Aphrodite watched Eros’ straight, shapely back vanish from her bedroom, his head hanging like a snowdrop. She hated to see him stressed, but he had to learn. Being a Love God put you in a certain position. Everyone wanted you, everyone was spooked by you, but no one recognised just how formidable you could be. It made people think they could take advantage, take you for granted, use you, forget about you. It was about respect. You couldn’t just let people get away with stuff. It was about _respect._

She snipped the end of the thread off with her teeth and gnashed on the fraying string of cotton. How could he? It was their 500! Five whole centuries! Well, he was going to remember this afternoon, if nothing else. The barbarian.

She shook his uniform jacket out, the medals jangling cockily. She turned it round to inspect her handiwork on the back. Exquisite. Artistry at its finest. She smiled to herself in a tight pout, slipped the jacket back into the closet, and her sewing kit back into the dresser drawer.

“Hey, Cougar.”

The bedroom doorway was swallowed in shadow. Ares leaned against the frame, a towel around his neck and his hair crinkled from the shower. His hands were in his sweatpants pockets, so his arms bowed and flexed and his tank top rode up a little on his hip, giving her a glimpse of gilded skin. It was very annoying that he was still so attractive right now.

She cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Look.” Ares sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, bunching his bicep and pulling his top up higher over the furrow between his abs and his hipbone. He spoke with gruff gentleness, the exact tone that tickled her spine and her kidneys. “You know half the time I don’t know how I messed up. So, just let me say again for the record, you’re the most incredible, powerful, captivating being in the whole fucking universe, and every day I’m with you is another reminder of how damn unworthy I am, and how damn lucky. And I have no fucking idea why you picked me, because Fates know you could have anyone forever, but I will never stop being thankful for that, or trying to do my best for you.”

He looked at her softly, his amber eyes glimmering like the core of the sun. 

She let her shoulders drop. “I know that, my handsome hero. Come here.” She spread her arms for him.

Ares grinned and bounced his eyebrows. He kicked the door softly shut as he walked into the room and tucked himself into her embrace, enclosing her in his heat and kissing her forehead. She stole her fingers down to his tailbone and teased him, a wicked glint in her eye. 

Ares slinked and chuckled and licked her ear. “Babe, no, I have to get ready for Ma’s TGOEM thing.”

Aphrodite slid her hands to his firm ass and squeezed. She rose onto her toes and spoke into his neck so her voice hummed on his skin. “Mmmm, I love the smell of your shampoo. All orangey, it makes me hungry.”

Ares groaned and his fingers found the zip up the back of her dress and danced on it, a little tango of resisting temptation. “I can’t.”

She slipped forward half an inch and moulded her body to his, his heartbeat thrumming against her breasts. She smiled in triumph as she felt him thicken through their clothes.

“Baaaabe.” Ares snuffled into her hair. “I really don’t have time.”

She pulled her head back to face him and made her eyes as round as they could go, crystal ball eyes, see-your-eternity-in-them eyes, the sweet colour of twilight in an orchard. “But…” Her full lower lip quivered. “I thought you always have time for me.”

She felt him melt against her body. “Sure I do, Soda Pop, always, always. I just promised Ma and… Ooooh…”

She rocked her hips forward in a slow, drawn-out scoop that stroked his swell from base to tip. A shudder went down his spine and she clutched his ass with the spikes of her fingernails and sent it back up to his neck. His head dropped back and his Adam’s apple bobbed. She snaked her tongue on his throat. His fingers plucked longingly at her zipper.

“I mean…” he breathed, “Maybe, like, five minutes…”

Her mouth nestled over his jugular and sucked. He slipped the zipper down a fraction.

“Or ten minutes, I probably have ten minutes.”

Her teeth grazed him as his pulse thumped. She sighed seductively, so his blood carried her desire around his body.

He made a weak whimper of surrender in his throat. “Fifteen tops.”

They toppled onto the bed.

Aphrodite smirked at the ceiling as Ares’ helpless eyes closed on her collarbone and his lips padded along the rise of her breasts. 

Fifteen was plenty.

[I know, I know, I’m getting to it. 

Well, I’m building for dramatic effect. It’s a Sunday, it’s not like you have work. 

Persie, people have been claiming all my life that I take too long to tell an anecdote, and I will say to you what I have said to all of them: if anyone had said that to Homer, we wouldn’t have the masterworks.

No, I know this isn’t Homer. This is arguably better than Homer because it’s a firsthand account. 

I don’t think that’s arrogant.

Look, we’re not even going to get to the end of Monday if you keep interrupting to tell me to go faster. 

So, insert white noise to avoid mental images here, Momma makes Dad late for his thing with Nana. Nana loves him like nothing else, but she also loves punctuality, and you know better than anyone how fucking pass-agg Hestia can be, especially at fundraiser time. So I’m in my room, redoing my hair - thank you for that argan oil recipe, by the way, perfection - and I hear Dad turning himself into a creature of 80% curse words and barrelling out of the house, still pulling his uniform on. No time to look at what he’s doing, no time to check his reflection. That’s a very important detail.]

Ares skidded into the TGOEM fundraiser garden party the back way, his heels tearing up the grass and casting a few sparks that he promptly stamped out with a grimace. Before him there was a small stage set up, decorated with tall, stylish vases of grand, elegant white orchids. A microphone stood primly in the centre. Beyond it, the Olympian well-to-do crowd milled about to sloping violin music, all kid gloves and crisp chinos. 

_Fuck, I’m so glad I shacked up with a fallen woman and stopped getting invited to these things._

He tugged his jacket straight and hastily finished doing up his tie. 

_That damn woman is such a time tar pit._

His stomach bobbed and his heart skipped.

_A really fucking good time tar pit. When can I go home?_

“You’re late!” Hera came marching over on sword-point heels, her flying-saucer hat and asymmetrical jet dress cutting a sleek, hard figure against the dainty, floral backdrop.

Ares smirked and bent to kiss her cheek. “Black, nice. You in mourning for an interesting day now you’re stuck hosting TGOEM?”

“Don’t be cheeky.” Hera flashed her golden eyes at him, but a hint of humour flicked the corner of her mouth. “Alright, in three and a half minutes, I will go up on the stage and invite Hestia to join me. We’ll make a joint speech about the importance of women to Olympus’ development, and the scholarship fund for female education, and the new strand to support Demi-Goddesses, and yada yada yada…” She rotated her hand in a bored, mechanical gesture. “And then I’ll say ‘Of course, what is so exciting about this stage of TGOEM’s growth is the strong male backing it has begun to engender.’”

“Uh, has it?” Ares scoffed.

“Of course not.” Hera rolled her eyes. “Why do you think I had to ask you to come do this, instead of literally any of the invited male guests? But if you’re seen to be a supporter, it could encourage others.”

“One,” Ares held up a finger, “Literally no one on Olympus has ever felt encouraged to mimic my behaviour. And two,” he held up a second finger, “I’m about to celebrate 500 years with this organisation’s literal arch-rival. We have like 40 children out of wedlock.”

“It is not that many.” Hera’s delicate eyebrows drifted up. “Has it been 500 years?”

“This Saturday.” Ares’ smile turned a touch bashful. "Flown by, right?" 

"Yes, Darling, it barely feels like 499." Hera’s expression wavered between pride and disappointment. “Doing anything for it?”

“I got some plans.”

“Your vagueness tells me I don’t want to know any more.” She nudged her hat to a sharper angle, a diamond bracelet glittering on her wrist. “Right, so when I say that, you come up on stage and say something supportive into the microphone…”

“An impossible task.”

“Echo…” She pointed behind her at a waifish, shrub-green nymph with a headset on and a large folder under her arm. “...will hand you the big cheque. You say something charming and hand it to Hestia. Smile for the camera. A nice smile, please…”

“Damn it.”

“Everyone claps, we drink a heroic quantity of champagne, and don’t have to do this again for another year. All sound good?”

Ares gave her a lazy salute. “Charming is my speciality.” 

Echo inched closer and cleared her throat tentatively.

“Show time.” Hera fixed her face into a bright, sociable smile and strode up onto the stage.

Ares watched his Ma perform the Olympus royalty nonsense dance. He had never had this skill. He could lie, sure, through his teeth, every warrior had to learn how to lie or you got hit too often. But she was a craftswoman. Kinda like his Aphrodite. Nope, don’t make that comparison.

_OK, get up, chat, cheque, charm, go home, put Soda Pop in my lap and braid her hair and feed her macaroons like the total fucking sap I am._

Hestia appeared on the stage, looking like a bottle of maple syrup. A ripple of polite laughter went through the crowd at some saccharin scrap of wit.

_Maybe I should just tell her I remembered, she looked a little more cut up than I expected. Though, I dunno, felt pretty forgiven just now._

“Of course, what is so exciting about this stage of TGOEM’s growth is the strong male backing it has begun to engender.”

_That’s my cue!_

Ares thudded up onto the stage, giving his uniform jacket a final tug. He nodded awkwardly at the smattering of half-hearted, actually quarter-hearted, applause, from the crowd. His dad stood in a completely out-of-place tropical-print shirt with a sullen look on his smug face. Uncle Poseidon beamed up at him with a very clear “None of us wanted to be here either, Kid.” expression. Athena fired a finger gun at him. Hebe waved a cute, dinky hand. He winked at her, then twitched a smile at Hestia, who returned it coolly. Hera stepped to the side, watching him with a hint of wariness. Ares stepped to the mic.

“Um…” He cleared his throat, his own voice echoed back to him on a slight boom and screech of the speakers. “TGOEM has been doing really great work. For women. And I support that. As a man.” 

Someone coughed. Hebe wrinkled her nose.

“Also, education.” Ares clucked his tongue. “Support that too. As a man.”

He looked sidelong at his Ma. She had pursed her lips. A small, nervous murmur behind him signalled Echo’s presence. He turned to receive the cheque.

A wave of gasps went through the crowd, rippling out into murmurs and titters and scandalised huffs.

Ares turned back with a confused frown.

_What was that?_

Hestia gaped at him, her hand to her peach-round cheek, flushed copper. Behind her, Hera looked like a cobra.

“Ares…” she hissed, “What. Is. That. On. Your. Jacket?”

Ares frowned deeper. “Huh, Ma?” He shrugged off his jacket and held it up in front of him. “My medals?”

“On. The. Back.”

Ares turned the jacket and his eyes goggled. All across the back, from the hem to the collar, was a huge, vibrant, stand-out embroidery of a thick, erect cock, sunflower yellow fading into cherry red, droplets splashing from the tip in silver diamante, paler yellow, fine curls adorning the balls.

A cacophony of camera clicks.

“Heyoooo! Not actual size, I presume!” Poseidon hooted.

“Uncle P!” Athena punched his arm then glared up at the stage. “Bro! You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

“ARES!” Hebe cried, as Athena flashed her hand over her eyes.

“Never been more proud!” Zeus whistled.

Hestia scowled.

The cameras kept clicking.

“Do you think that’s what it really looks like?” a woman’s voice purred.

“Golly, maybe I should rethink my membership,” her friend replied.

Hestia squeaked.

“Ares, put it down!” Hera snapped, marching to the mic. “Friends, what my son has so well demonstrated is that the need for TGOEM is as strong as it ever was.”

Ares wasn’t listening as his Ma smoothed over the mishap and the rabble remained thoroughly roused at her feet. He gawped at his jacket, slack-jawed, his blood pounding in his ears.

_Oh, Babe, you fucking sexy, nightmare, evil genius. It is fucking on._

[And that was Monday! Dad and Momma couldn’t stop spatting all night, they were like damn pancake batter. It’s so dumb because Dad doesn’t even like his uniform, and he definitely doesn’t like TGOEM. I don’t think he was even embarrassed. I mean, does he have the capacity for embarrassment? Would my life have been like this if he did? Does any father have the capacity for embarrassment? Like, doesn’t that undercut the whole role? I digress…

The point is, they weren’t in a fight, but they had to act like they were to save face with each other. “It’s about respect”, right? Yeah, let me tell ya, Persie, I heard that A LOT this week. 

What’s that? Sure I can wait while you get ice cream. Hey, put Cordon Bleu on the screen. And then we can move onto Tuesday. HEY LIL FLUFFBALL! WHO'S A VERY GOOD BOY?] 


	2. Down to Clown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tuesday. Aphrodite has an important conference call with the Love Goddesses of Egypt and the Norse. She has to give her best impression, but Ares has other plans.

[So, Tuesday. For everyone but Dad and children, Tuesday is a work day. So me and Momma had this big, important conference call scheduled. Gramps has that whole policy of inter-pantheon relations, you know? So we were gonna talk to Hathor over in Egypt and Freyja up north, to get the ball rolling on some joint projects. I'm actually super excited about it, I had this idea I'm really proud of, of like international couples' cruises. Like, you do the Nile and then you go skiing and then it's the beach over with us, and Love God staff at every stop do a different activity with you, like erotic massage, or poetry recitals or… 

What do you mean "Who is this for?" Literally everybody, who wouldn't want that? 

Oh, like realm-wise. I guess… OK, don't try to press me for details to throw off the story, I know you're hooked. Right, so this conference call is a big deal, because there's a lot of opportunities attached to it. But also, because Love Gods shepherd more shade than psychopomps, and you gotta have your best foot forward… ] 

"Ugh. I hate this cutesy fucking initiative of your grandfather's," Aphrodite grumbled as she clicked around the joining email for the conference call. "It's so blatantly transparent he's only interested in this diplomatic dick-measuring because Hera started having queens' getaways with Isis and Frigga and he got paranoid about losing the decision-making, along with the other kings." She plugged the webcam into the computer with a sharp  _ clack. _ "I swear, the work the entire fucking realm has to do to soothe that man's tumour of an ego, we could get Sisyphus over the hill."

Eros nodded dutifully, flicking through his notebook, then checking his makeup in his compact. "Will Bastet be tuning in? I want to know what she thinks of my eyeliner wing."

"No. I vetoed her for getting catty."

The webcam winked to life and showed Aphrodite her own radiant face, a little blurred at the edges. She shuffled the screen around an inch to get a better angle and smoothed her hair. She pinched the front of her bra through her dress and jiggled it about to push her breasts up. 

"Momma! Please!" 

She dusted her hand at Eros dismissively. The little blue notification appeared on the screen,  _ You will be let into the meeting shortly.  _

"'Let into the meeting'," she grouched, "Bet Freyja makes us wait while she feeds her 50 fucking cats. Fucking Zeus. Who run the world, Baby Bear?" 

"Girls, Momma."

She patted his cheek and beckoned him in frame. 

_ You are being connected.  _

A row of blue dots fluctuated on the screen, while Aphrodite drummed her fingernails irritably on the desk and Eros clicked his pen in and out. 

A sound effect like a fish blowing a bubble. Their sherbet faces dropped into the corner and the screen was split between two startling women, smiling like sharks. 

Hathor was lithe and dazzling gold, unclear whether by nature or some unbelievably expensive body paint. Her hair was a severe, square, black bob, her eyes were large and dark and thickly lined, and her lips were stained burgundy. She wore large earrings of heavy golden discs, like suns, and a lapis lazuli ankh pendant gleamed from her long neck between the angular, black lapels of her suit jacket. She was regal beyond her station, haughty and undeniably impressive. 

Freyja was apple-faced and buxom, an elaborate puzzle-box of flaxen braids pinned on top of her head and pulling her soft features taut. She was freckled and her eyes sparkled frost-blue. She was rather more approachable than Hathor in a forest-green, relaxed-fit flannel shirt. But her hands were clinking and heavy with gold rings, and her mouth had a proud twist to it. 

Eros waved cheerily. 

Aphrodite untwisted the strap of her scarlet dress and tossed her cascade of hair over her shoulder. She dashed a winning smile into the camera. "Ladies! Fates and Norns, I'm so glad we could finally put this together." 

Freyja nodded heartily, her accent rolled like wagon wheels. "Tell me about it, you're so in demand, Aphrodite, I was starting to think you weren't real."

"A bit early in the conversation to be calling each other fake, isn't it?" Hathor gave a light, musical laugh. 

Aphrodite echoed it stiffly, sing-song in her reply. "Don't be bad, Hathor." She fixed a dangerous look on Hathor's half of the screen. "I absolutely adore those earrings, by the way, they make your face look so much more symmetrical."

Hathor laughed once through her nose. "Dite, you look literally divine, the lighting in that room must be excellent."

Eros felt Aphrodite's hackles go up, her agitation nudged his skin.  "Freyja," he ventured, "How's that long winter going up there?" 

"Dull," Freyja shrugged, "But the snow is surprisingly good for the skin."

"I can see that." Aphrodite's sniper eyes flicked to the other half of the screen. "You look so natural. It's almost like you put no effort in at all."

"It's so great not feeling like you have to hide behind all those layers of makeup." Freyja said, a vein of ice in her breezy tone. 

Aphrodite arched an eyebrow. 

Hathor smacked her lips. 

Eros blinked. 

Ares slid forward on the couch and hunkered over Agape's shoulders, as she sat on the floor, scrolling through his laptop on the coffee table. 

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this." Agape chuntered as she tapped fluidly on the keyboard. 

"Hey Corn Chip, you want a bigger allowance, there's no shame in that." Ares said with a teasing smile. "Capitalism finds us all in the end."

"I am not a Capitalist!" Agape snapped. "I only want that bigger allowance so I can take the nicer train to my Charities club."

"I told you I'd take you on my bike." 

"Ew, Dad, as if I'm letting you within a mile of my friends."

Ares huffed and leaned back on the couch, spreading his golden eagle wingspan along the back. 

"By the way, Dad," Agape jabbed, still tapping, "You're not a Capitalist either, you just get your money from looting."

"So, exactly the same as Capitalism."

"Wow, satire, didn't know you had it in you."

Ares chuckled and reached forward and ruffled Agape's fine hair. She bristled like a kitten in the bath. 

"OK, I think I'm in," Agape said, "It's this file, yeah?" 

"That's the one." Ares grinned devilishly, his teeth glinting almost as bright as his jasper eyes. 

"And Momma won't know I was a part of this?" 

"Deal's a deal, Guacamole Girl."

[Aaaw Persie, is that Pomelia behind you? Bring her in! 

Hey Pompom! Who's my special princess? Who is it? That's right! It's you! Yes, it is! 

Oh Tartarus, that reminds me. Freyja's cat is the most precious little thing I have ever seen in my eternal life. She's like snow white and super fluffy and she has this squished nose and the bushiest tail, it's like an ostrich feather. I love her. 

No, this is totally relevant. You see, I was having a great time on this call, because Hathor is a cat person too. So she and Freyja both bring their babies on. And Cleo starts nuzzling the camera and Battle-Prowler - yeah, Freyja's pet names are metal as fuck - has her little toe beans up. And THEN…]

Aphrodite glared at her son, as he prodded the computer screen and made delighted kissy noises at their feline interlopers. As a bird person, Aphrodite was naturally disinclined to cats. She was also naturally disinclined to Hathor and Freyja. So, all in all, this afternoon was an irritant. 

Eros gasped and clapped as Cleo rolled over and showed the grey spot on her belly, in the midst of her sleek, ebony fur. Aphrodite tutted. 

_ Traitor.  _

"Shall we get back on track?" she said curtly. 

Hathor picked Cleo up off her desk, the cat's long, slinky body drooping as she was lifted under the forelegs. Battle-Prowler was shooed off to the side, but one fuzzy ear still poked into the frame. 

Aphrodite straightened from her bored slump and took on a business-like tone. "Item Two on the agenda, seduction as punishment. I know both Zeus and Osiris have been toying with outlawing it, which at least from the Greek perspective is assaultively ironic. Freyja, did you find out Odin's stance?" 

Freyja rolled her eyes. "No. Odin decided the best way to spend this month was by hanging himself upside down from a tree, hoping the blood-rush would start giving him visions."

"I thought prophecy was women-only over there?"

"It is, he's a numbskull. But I already know he's got no beef with seduction as punishment. He's such a fucking deviant, he loves when someone else takes the heat off him."

"Excellent, do you think you could get him to write a letter of support?"

“I’ll give it a go.”

“Good.” Aphrodite made a note. “We can’t have them making this kind of absurd arbitrary judgements on our practices, half their power restrictions already disproportionately affect Love Gods.”

“It’s about respect.” The three of them said together.

“Now,” Aphrodite continued, “Item Three: Safe sex in realms of low technology. I’ve been think-” 

Aphrodite was cut off by a hum and a crackle. The screen showing her feed went black. Hathor and Freyja frowned. She blinked and tapped the side of the monitor. Her feed clicked back on with a riot of joyful, childish applause under the honking, goofy yells of… 

"HI-HO, KIDS! IT'S ME! LOVEY-DOVE THE CLOWN!" 

Aphrodite stared in abject horror, as her square of screen showed a home video of Ludus' fifth birthday - a scene as if the primordial stew of creation had been made of silly string and balloon animals - at the exact moment the clown had cancelled. And been replaced. By herself. Lovey-Dove had her purple hair in two chunky braids, threaded with wire to form shapes like she'd been electrocuted. She wore a hugely oversized set of Ares' pyjamas, stuffed with pillows to turn her into a perfect oval, with a massive, red glitter heart pinned to the front. Scuba-diving flippers flapped on her feet, with plushy hearts from Eros' room tied to them with pink ribbon. Her face was painted all over with pink hearts, as if she had a horrible skin condition. 

She came bumbling into the room, taking laboured, enormous steps in her weighted flippers. "I heard there was a BIRTHDAY BOY here today!" She produced a tiny, plastic trumpet from her pocket and blew on it with a mouth smeared with shapeless lipstick. It made a pathetic toot and she rolled her clown eyes. 

"RA'S BEAK!" Hathor squawked, "Is that YOU, Dite?" 

"LOKI'S BALLS!" Freyja collapsed into avalanching laughter. 

Aphrodite snarled and started to smash the keyboard, trying to stop the video, or end the call, or fucking anything, but her controls didn't respond. Eros' jaw dropped, as he watched helplessly. 

"WOW! Is THIS the BIRTHDAY BOY?" Lovey-Dove bent down to a giggling Ludus. "What's that in your hair?" 

She flourished her hand and a red rose was plucked from Ludus' scarlet mane. He gasped and clapped his hands to his face. 

"Whoah!" Hathor cackled, "I bet even Isis doesn't know that one!" 

Lovey-Dove was just getting started. She tossed the rose into the air and it exploded in a shower of confetti that the children all leaped about to catch. A sprinkle fell on Lovey-Dove's pink-painted nose and she snorted like a piglet, batted at the confetti and wobbled dangerously in her flippers. 

Freyja brayed like a donkey. "I can't… This is… Oh, now I know what true love is."

Eros gaped at his Momma, shrinking back as shimmering violet smoke poured from her ears. 

"How did you do this? Did you lean on something?" he asked urgently.

"I didn't do fucking anything, Eros! I've never even seen this video before!" Aphrodite banged her fist on the mouse-mat and the mouse jumped. 

"Dite, do you think I could book Lovey-Dove for my birthday?" Freyja guffawed. "She's got serious talent!" 

Lovey-Dove's pyjamas ruffled and she wriggled dramatically. 

"Oh, shit…" Aphrodite clapped her hand to her forehead. "I remember this bit." 

"Which bit?" Eros winced. 

Lovey-Dove shimmied, rattling the glittery heart badge, and smacked her hands to her huge, pillow belly and squished it about. "Oh nooooo, kids! I think I've got a RUMBLY IN MY TUMMBLY!" 

"Oh no!" Freyja screeched. 

"Not a rumbly!" Hathor howled. 

"Oh Gods…" Aphrodite hid behind her splayed fingers. 

"SOMETHING'S HA-HA-HAAAAAAPPENING!" Lovey-Dove wailed. She flung forward, tipped backward, clutched her belly, doubled over. And let loose an absolutely heroic fart, echoing through the party and buzzing in the recording mic. 

She tugged the back of her waistband open. 

A dove flew out. 

Hathor and Freyja shrieked and heaved gasps for air and clapped and whistled wildly. The dove flapped in a panic and flurried white feathers across the screen, before vanishing off camera to a real hullabaloo from the children. 

The monitor went black and the racket silenced. 

Eros stood by the wall, the pulled computer plug hanging from his hand. 

There was a long, tense pause. 

"It was a sound effect on my phone," Aphrodite mumbled tersely into her hands. 

"You said at the time," Eros said, "You never told us how you did the dove though."

"It did not come out of my ass."

"Then WHERE?" 

They were interrupted by the harsh, reverberating sound of large palms clapping together in agonisingly slow applause. 

Ares rolled around the study door frame and leaned triumphantly on his shoulder, one foot kicking over the other, his whole body exuding impudence, a grin slicker than high quality lube across his chiselled features. 

"Ah, Lovey-Dove, a brief career, but a cultural icon. Five stars. Best show in the realms." His clapping wound down even slower. 

Aphrodite raised her head, wisps of smoke still sparkling in her hair, her eyes diamond-hard. 

"You. Filmed. It." She growled through her teeth. 

Ares put his hand to his heart and stifled a laugh. "Babe, Gorgeous, my starlight, my ocean. Of course I filmed it."

She lowered her hands to the arms of her chair and gripped. Her knuckles turned white. Her voice was deadly quiet. "And then. You played it. In the most. Important. Meeting. Of. My. Month."

Ares shrugged and spread his hands in mock innocence. "Did I? You know I'm no good with tech stuff, too much time camping down the mountain."

"We both know it was you, Ares." The breath riding Aphrodite's voice sounded like the footfall of lionesses in the Savannah grass. She stood and drew herself up, her shoulders rolling back to show the muscles in her arms. 

"I think we both suspect it was me, but we can never really know." Ares casually inspected his fingernails, squeezing even more nonchalance out of his lean. 

Eros glanced between them, still holding the computer plug. Momma was quiet, Dad was lounging, but the electricity sparking in the air between them was so intense it was almost solid metal. 

"Maybe your machine glitched," Ares suggested. 

Eros glared. 

"Oh," Aphrodite murmured, low and lethal, "I'll show you what we do with a glitching machine."

She shot out her hand and there was a burst of lilac sparkles and her fingers coiled tight on the smart, leather handle of a long, brutal-looking riding crop, it's scarlet, leather tip catching the light hungrily, like hot wax. 

Ares rocked onto the balls of his feet, peeling from the door frame. His hands hovered in front of him and his body fell into the smooth, taut alignment that said he was about to run. 

"Is, uh…" His deep voice fractured and his eyebrows floated up. "Is this funishment? Or the other thing?" 

Eros groaned.

"Let me put it this way, Honey Bear," Aphrodite purred dangerously, "Have you ever heard the phrase 'beating a dead horse'?" 

"Oh… Fuck."

[Aaaand that's where we'll fade to black on Tuesday. Needless to say, I did not enjoy being in the house for the rest of the afternoon. 

No, you may not save Momma's number in your phone as Lovey-Dove. 

How can you possibly think this is not that bad? Imagine if you were going to a huge Underworld Corp meeting with Daddy Death and suddenly your Mom showed up with a video of you in that Kore Cob costume. Then imagine a bunch of, I don't know, fucking chickens flew outta your butt! 

OK, OK, well since you're such a forgiving Dread Queen of the Dead, you can stay on this train with me. Next stop: Escalation Station! 

Shut up, you loved that.]


	3. Losing Streak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wednesday. Ares takes Eros and Ampelus to the mall, then leaves them to do very important boyfriend shopping. An encounter with a stranger goes further than he expected, as Aphrodite makes her next move.

[Where are we now? Wednesday. Wednesday is my personal least favourite. 

I mean, it started pretty great. I took Dad to the mall to help him get a tux for whatever this big surprise on Saturday was gonna be, and Ampelus came with us. I’m not sure why? But I don’t know, she’s a real sweetheart, I like having her around.

Ugh, no, for the thousandth time we aren’t dating. Now shush and pay attention to the story!]

Some easy listening jazz radio slinked through the speakers in the changing rooms of the Penelope’s Weaving men’s department. Eros had steered Ares with great purpose towards this store. It was classy, serene, the sort of high-end establishment where the staff wore all black and had headsets and carried a tape measure on a belt loop. The changing rooms were in a circular area in stylish greys and blues, a low, asymmetrical couch in the centre of a ring of cubicles closed with dark, velvet curtains, behind which silver hooks and leather stools and long mirrors and adjustable lighting created the ideal environment for cultivating the perfect look. Eros was so relieved Dad had asked for help. Fates know what kind of rent-a-virus he would have come home with otherwise.

Eros sat on the chic couch in his sleek, black, cashmere sweater, one leg crossed over the other and his foot bouncing idly to the music, as he toyed with a curl straying from his quiff. 

The curtain thwipped and Ares appeared in a dark blue tuxedo with a soft sheen on the lapels, the bow tie lying open and his shoes kicked off behind him. Eros cocked his head and perused the ensemble.

“Verdict?” Ares asked, spinning clumsily on his heel.

“I like it.” Eros concluded. “Blue works way better on you than black.”

“I dunno, I was really feeling the black.”

“Eros uncrossed his legs, leaned his elbows on his knees, and tented his fingers sternly in front of his chin. “Dad, please try to understand. Whilst ever we are in this establishment, you do not have feelings about colour or cut or style. You have feelings about only two things: Momma, and how you want to look your best for her, and me, and how you trust my judgement completely. Is that clear?”

Ares raised an eyebrow and half-smiled. “Crystal, Cap.”

“Good.” Eros relaxed back again. 

Ares turned to the mirror down one side of the cubicle and started to fiddle with the bow tie, humming tunelessly to the well-mannered music.

“So, where’s your friend gone?” He asked casually after a moment.

Eros’ mouth quirked. “Ampelus?”

“Uhuh.”

“She’s on the hunt for some new perfume Momma recommended for her.” Eros felt a sigh leave his body unbidden, his eyes drifted up to the understated chandelier over his head. “I’m not sure why Momma’s got her on a wild goose chase, her current perfume is lovely.” Eros let his eyes get a little bleary in the dazzle of the lights. He heard his dad snicker. He snapped his gaze back down with pursed lips. “What was that?”

“I didn’t say anything.” 

“You were going to.”

“Nothing, just…” Ares tangled his index finger in the bow and gruffed and tugged it apart to start again. “So, Ampelus’ perfume smells lovely, does it?”

“I am a Love God, it’s only natural for me to notice these things.”

Ares chuckled. “Is it natural for you to notice when you’ve got the major hots for someone, literally to the extent where it clogs the fucking air in here?”

“I do not!” Eros crossed his arms tight and his lower lip jutted out. “Ampelus and I are just friends.”

“Suuuure.” Ares fumbled the tie again and snarled in the back of his throat. “Have you ever noticed people never refer to their actual friends as ‘just friends’? No one’s ever like ‘Hey, you ever met my buddy Ajax? He’s just a friend.’ How fucking rude, right? No, Kiddo, ‘just friends’ is a special title given exclusively to people we have a crush on and don’t want to have a crush on.”

Eros chewed his lip red.

Ares shook out his hands, flexed his fingers and moved in on his collar for another attempt. Eros tutted and stood and strode to him. He batted Ares’ thick fingers away with his own nimble ones and began to deftly tie the bow.

“I can’t have a crush on Ampelus,” he said in a voice somewhere between softness and resentment, “I’m desperately in love with…” He glanced around the space, it was empty but he lowered his voice anyway. “You know who.”

“So?” Ares shrugged, dislodging Eros’ butterfly-even tie. Now it was Eros’ turn to huff and start again, as Ares continued. “I’m desperately in love with your Ma, I still get crushes.”

“You do? Like real ones?”

“For sure.” 

Ares was using that Dad tone he had sometimes, easy and genial and quietly confident, quietly supportive. Eros told himself he was too old to respond to it so easily, but it made no difference. He smiled up into Ares’ tequila sunrise face.

Ares smiled back and rambled on. “Like, obviously a lot of the time it’s just heat seeking heat, you know?”

“Gross.”

“But yeah, I get real crushes. Like, our Aunt Persie.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call her that.”

“She married Uncle Underworld, it’s technically correct.”

“I hate Olympus.”

“Anyway, I was so into her. She was sweet and feisty and weird. Checked all my boxes.”

“We were having a nice moment, then you ruined it.”

“I’m just saying, at no point in that did I love your Ma any less. She’s the centre of my whole fucking existence. Doesn’t matter how many moons you have spinning round you, you still orbit the sun. You get it?”

Eros finished Ares’ bow tie, stepped back and gave it a flick for being so uncooperative. He kept his eye on it as he answered. “I get it.”

Ares clapped his arm and turned back to the mirror. He grinned brightly. “Hey, good job! Got that rascal in check!”

“Which rascal?” Eros asked drily, “The tie or the disaster wearing it?”

“Rude.” Ares prodded his forehead and moved to close the curtain to change again.

“Dad?” The hesitant, hopeful note was out of Eros’ mouth before he realised he’d parted his lips.

Ares looked back to him with wide, poppy eyes.

Eros folded one arm across his body and rubbed his elbow, looking at a squiggle of shadow in the curtain beside his father. “How do you make it work? Being apart so much, managing other partners, all the crap with Gramps. How do you make it to 500?”

Ares searched his son’s face. He felt his chest swell, pride and sympathy playing tug-of-war with his heartstrings. Eros looked burdened. Of course he was. Such a special kid, taking care of everybody all the time. Probably feeling like it would be betraying this absentee mortal girl even to let himself want something. Fuck, she better be worthy of him. And she better know how much he went through for her when they’re finally together again. 

He laid a firm hand on Eros’ shoulder, not quite as broad and hard as his, but getting there, a strong man now. He hooked Eros’ face up with his gaze - his beautiful, summer-blossom face.

“We didn’t make it to 500,” he said in a soothing, sincere lilt, “We made it to tomorrow 182,500 times.”

Eros’ tense brow smoothed and his watermelon-soda eyes seemed to sparkle brighter. 

“You get it?”

“I get it.” 

Ares squeezed his shoulder.

Eros looked his father up and down with a hint of pride. “I think this is the one.”

“Your old man cleans up alright, huh?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. If you don’t wear it with dress shoes, if I see even the toe of a sneaker or those gods-awful boots…”

Ares ruffled his hair.

“DAD! DAMN IT! WHY!” Eros’ hands shot to his hair on a rescue mission. “And tell Momma you remembered!”

“Absolutely not! I got her right where I want her.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ares laughed like a lion and flung the curtain closed between them.

[Yes, Persie, he really did say all that stuff about you. 

Stop doing that face. And stop giggling! Fates, fickle much? 

OK, so anyway, like I said, the day’s going great. We’ve had pretzels, Dad’s got a new tux, heart-warming father-son bonding time, all the good stuff. But here’s the thing about leaving the house for any amount of time with my disaster, I mean dad: there’s no such thing as peace.]

Ares walked a couple of feet apart from Eros and Ampelus, letting them drift closer together as the cute little indigo nymph raised her newly perfumed wrist for Eros to touch his nose to. He eyed how she wet her lip, as Eros’ face hovered near to hers. Ares watched out for the nicest looking coffee house in the mall, potted palm trees springing up at the doorway and a menu with gold lettering on the top, a few scattered tables outside populated by clusters of women drinking cosmopolitans, and single, smartly-dressed people, invisible behind broadsheet newspapers. There was even a satyr maitre d’ in a get-up fancier than the one Ares had just bled half his bank account for. 

He halted and cleared his throat. Eros and Ampelus paused mid-giggle over some private joke, one of their dozens. 

“Hey, the next phase of anniversary prep is way less suited to father-son time,” he said, taking his wallet out of his back pocket and shuffling a few notes into his fingers, “Why don’t you guys have a sit down and a coffee and I’ll find you later. It’s on me.” He held the money out to Eros.

Eros gave him a deriding look.

Ares pushed it back with a _Just fucking take the nice lady to a nice place, you stick in the mud_ look.

Eros shook his head very slightly.

Ares nodded his head even slighter.

Ampelus glanced quizzically between them. “Eros? Your dad’s being awful nice, maybe we could split a key lime pie or something?”

“Yeah, Eros.” Ares' teeth and eyes flashed in unison. “Maybe you could split a key lime pie.”

“Or…” Eros said through tight lips, “We could get two separate desserts.”

“I don’t know if there’s enough in there for that, Big Guy.” Ares rubbed his chin. “I’m not made of money. Might be best to split. Or maybe even see if they’ll do a milkshake with two straws.”

Ampelus turned honey eyes on Eros. Eros determinedly did not look at her, but he swiped the cash out of Ares’ hand and mumbled a flat “Thank you.” 

“Thank you!” Ampelus’ cheeks darkened to blackberry.

Ares winked at her, glanced pushily at Eros once more, and waved them off, spinning on his heel and swinging the paper bag with his tux in, as he sauntered off down the busy thoroughfare. 

The afternoon sun streamed through the high, arcing ceiling of the mall. Ares let it flush his face, as his blood hummed with the hundreds of small annoyances and squabbles buzzing pleasantly through the crowds. 

_182,500 days. Fuck, that’s a lot of good days._

He rounded the corner and the store he was looking for bloomed into view across the shining walkway: Siren Song Lingerie. His mind instantly erupted with a thousand images of Aphrodite in the countless little treats he’d picked up for her from there; flaunting, flirting, rolling in the sheets and laughing with the sound of wind chimes, seductively lowering straps and drawing up hems and sending lace and silk rippling through the air, enjoying her body, enjoying his enjoyment of it.

_182,500 good days._

Ares ignored the usual quota of wary looks he got when his bulk and the clomp of his combat boots made themselves apparent in the delicate, ethereal environment. The lights were a dusky peach, sighing over chocolate-box pink walls. Everything was arranged in a carefully curated pathway of treasures, in gently curving avenues, opened before him, all draped in layers of floaty, shimmery fabric. It all gently converged on a large, round, central table, laid with a seemingly endless array of blue panties, spilling out like fountain ripples to the edge. Rising from them was a gleaming, glass sculpture of a mermaid. Her top half caught pink rainbows in the light and modelled a glittering turquoise bra. It was stitched through it’s pleated, gauzy finish with pinprick crystals, the cups shaped like scallop shells and trimmed with lavender lace. It looked like it was handmade out of sea spray. Ares smiled and tilted his head. 

“Like what you see, Sir?” A voice like a flute sounded at his shoulder.

Ares turned and saw a tall, pear-shaped nymph to his left. She glimmered the colour of mulberry wine warming by a hearth, in stark contrast to her bubblegum pink, almond eyes and her short mess of bubblegum pink curls. She wore a fitted pencil skirt that lavishly complimented her broad hips, and her pink shirt had just enough buttons undone to glimpse a crown of lilac lace. 

Ares smiled. “Definitely.” He glanced at her name badge. “Kyrene, that’s pretty.”

Kyrene smiled and a few freckles twinkled bronze on her nose and bronze rimmed the pink in her eyes. “What are you looking for today?”

One corner of Ares’ mouth pulled up higher than the other. “The unexpected.”

“Surprising someone?” She cocked an eyebrow, bringing her proud, angular features into sharp relief.

“You can say that again,” Ares chuckled.

Kyrene looked momentarily lost in a pleasing thought. When she came back to herself, her eyes were pink sapphires and excited. “I think I have just the thing.” She raised a long fingernail, manicured to a point and painted black, and beckoned him with one, smooth curling motion.

It wasn’t the kind of beckon you just didn’t follow literally anywhere. But Ares faltered, looking back at the pretty seashell bra on the mermaid, Aph’s colours, his pearl, his ocean beauty. 

_OK, one quick distraction, but do not leave here without that._

Kyrene turned with the fluidity of clay on a wheel and sashayed away from him into the depths of the store. Ares picked up his feet and followed eagerly, his eyes drawn to the sway of her hips as she moved. 

She stopped at a vaulting shelf of some collection in floral black lace with rose gold detail. She plucked a babydoll down and held it out to him, draping it over one hand, speaking with allure and refinement. “This is from our newest designer, the most promising in generations, some are saying. She has a truly exquisite instinct for the body.” She fluttered her fingers under the piece so the rose gold caught the light. “Feel it, the shape is there even when it’s not pronounced.”

Ares glanced around him briefly, then stroked his fingertips down the lace, pressing through to skate along the vein down Kyrene’s forearm. She shot him a heating look and they held each other’s gaze for a brief moment, before she looked back to the lace.

“And it’s not just the subtlety of the shape,” Kyrene went on in a murmur like she was telling him a wonderful secret, the other customers melting away into the air, “This collection really worships and nurtures the softness of the body, not only creating more comfort, but…” she lowered her voice and ducked her head in closer to Ares with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, he mirrored her. “Quite a few of our customers say it also really encourages arousal.” 

Ares raised his eyebrows and a wide, boyish grin poked at his mouth. He fought to contain it, barely. “Oh yeah?”

Kyrene returned the babydoll and reached to her eye level and hooked the gusset of a pair of flimsy panties with her forefinger. She circled her thumb around the outside, massaging the swell of her finger beneath. Ares’ eyes went wide. 

“I can personally vouch for it,” Kyrene’s voice dropped to a tantalising whisper, “It’s what I’m wearing right now.”

It took Kyrene exactly 8.4 seconds to get Ares into a changing room, back against the wall and breathless.

They thunked into the padded side of the cubicle, the door firmly locked, thankfully not a busy day for the store. Ares slid a little down the wall to lower himself the inches to Kyrene’s mouth and caught it like a trout catching a hook. His hands ran feverishly over her tightly-wrapped form, mapping her curves and muscle. She was stronger than he expected and his heart cantered hard, as she gripped his shirt-front and thrust him hard against the wall and nibbled his lip. He shivered and coiled his tongue on hers.

“Fuck, Kyrene, you’re really something…” Ares breathed in a giddy rush. 

He slid his hand under her skirt and pulled her into him by her thigh, instantly high on her perfume. He dove to her neck, flaring furiously hot at her strangled sigh when his teeth met her skin. 

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she laughed under her breath. She pulled away a fraction and gazed at him, her long ears pricking alert like a playing fawn’s, a gold stud in one winking. She drank him in, her hungry stare roaming around his body, so he felt like her eyes were burning away his clothes.

“Oh…” Her lip trembled and a moan leaked into her words, setting him alight in the pit of his stomach. She stroked his chest like she was rolling out dough. “You’re so hot. I want to see all of you.”

Her bubblegum eyes flicked up and met his with a sultry plea.

Ares hesitated. “Seriously? Here? Now?”

She swallowed the last of his words in a ferocious kiss that emptied his lungs and hardened him to oak, murmuring impatiently into his mouth. “Yeah, here, _now_.”

“Uh…”

She sucked his lower lip to a raspberry blush.

“Fuck, what are those panties made of?”

She lapped along his jaw and he could feel his pulse almost painfully in his wrists and his thighs and his cock. 

“You scared?” The challenge turned his need sharp.

“What? No!”

“Then, come on.” Her hands stole under his shirt and glided up his abs, his skin responding as if they were jet skis whipping up the surface of water. “Show me that body.” She found his pip-hard nipples and flicked and twisted them.

Ares’ eyes rolled back into his head and he bit his lip. “Oh, yeah, fuck…” He hauled his shirt over his head. “This is crazy…”

“You like crazy?” She traced the tip of her tongue from his ear to his nipple, then sealed her mouth around it and sucked on it like hard caramel. 

Ares groaned roughly, clutched her jostling hair with one hand and slipped the other into the opening of her shirt. Her nipples were alert too, large and tender. He rolled one through the lace of her bra like he was teasing a cherry off the stem. He shuddered violently at the hasty heat of her mouth on his skin. “I live for crazy.”

She purred and her palm stroked over his swell. He almost cried out with the shock of pleasure and bit hard on his tongue, pulling her back by her hair and forcing his moan into her mouth with a fiery kiss.

They clambered against the wall, scuffling and giggling and whispering moans and enticement, hands everywhere, mouths restlessly connecting then ripping free to bite and suck and tease. 

“Keep going.” Kyrene commanded, with a strained desperation in her tone that made Ares’ cock strain desperately in turn.

His fingers moved in a frenzy, warring with his belt and his zipper. The second his jeans were loose, Kyrene wrenched them down with his boxer-briefs in a single, brutal motion, and his cock jumped to her like a spaniel, throbbing red.

“Kick your clothes away.”

“What?”

“Do it.”

Sometime in the last moments, Ares had forgotten where he was and various key words, such as “No”, “Why?” and “Are you freaking kidding me? This is a public lingerie store on a Wednesday afternoon.” He ducked to attack his bootlaces, his tongue chasing up the inside of her thigh as he did so, then shot to stand again and kicked the last of his clothes away. 

Kyrene stood back and raked her fingers into her hair and feasted her eyes on him, the blatant enjoyment making his insides somersault. The way she sucked on her tongue made his mouth water.

“Close your eyes.”

He did it.

“Touch yourself.”

His head dropped back against the wall as he began to work his cock, the excitement sparking across his exposed body. 

_Oh Gods. Oh fuck, yes. How did this happen again? Doesn’t matter. What a hurricane woman. What a fucking mouth. What a… What was that?_

Ares heard a rustle and a click.

And then he heard absolutely nothing.

He opened his eyes, his hand still hovering on his aching shaft.

He was alone.

And his clothes and his tux were gone.

[Persie, stop asking about my date with Ampelus. Also, it wasn’t a date! It was a FORCED coffee and key lime pie!

How many pies? One between us. They were really big servings. And sweet. And expensive. This is irrelevant! 

Right. OK. So we pay for our meal and we’re heading out of the coffee house and… Oh, actually Ampelus did say the funniest thing… No, I’m not getting sidetracked! So we step out of the door and there, sat at one of the little tables in the mall street, is Momma!]

Aphrodite peeked over her magazine, her large purple sunglasses casting the palm trees at the coffee house door into candy colours. The lens only made her eldest baby even more instantly recognisable. He held the door for Ampelus and followed her out, his shoulders bouncing and his eyes crinkled in an enchanting purity of high spirits, as Ampelus laughed along with him, seemingly telling some sort of anecdote. She had planned to remain incognito today, but they looked so sickeningly wonderful together, what’s a Love Goddess to do?

“Baby Bear!” She cooed and waved, dropping her magazine.

It amused her that it took Eros a moment to spot her. She had cloaked her figure in a cream trench coat and stuffed her eye-catching river of hair into a white beret, perched neatly at a chic angle on top of her head. 

“Momma?” Eros and Ampelus walked to her table in surprise. “What are you doing dressed like a cartoon spy?”

“Just didn’t feel like being recognised by the rabble.” Aphrodite sighed prettily and batted at an invisible hoi polloi. “You know how it can be. But I’m never too deep undercover to see my two favourite grown-up babies.”

She patted the table eagerly and Eros and Ampelus drew up chairs and settled into sitting with her. Eros pushed Ampelus’ chair in for her, before he sat down.

_Oh, my little prince, Momma did a good job with you._

“So,” Aphrodite said brightly, stirring her cappuccino and looking with her most charming sparkle over the tops of her sunglasses, “I was thinking, do the two of you want to do something on Saturday? We could see a show, or go to the pool, whatever you like.”

Eros and Ampelus exchanged a look.

“Momma,” Eros said tentatively, “It’s your big 500 on Saturday.”

“Not according to your dad.” Aphrodite huffed.

“I wouldn’t…” Eros glanced at Ampelus and her dear, sympathetic expression, then back at the haughty upturn of Aphrodite’s nose. “I wouldn’t be so sure…”

Aphrodite yapped a cold laugh. “Oh? You’re a model son, Baby Bear, but Poppa’s really screwed the pooch on this one.”

“Oh, I’m not denying that.” Eros grumbled to his chest.

Aphrodite sipped her cappuccino. A flash of bubblegum pink caught her eye and a champagne sensation popped and fizzed in her belly. Kyrene came strutting down the glitzy marble street with a paper bag dangling from her hand and a triumphant expression on her bold, burgundy face. 

_Excellent._

Aphrodite’s smile soaked her entire being, like brandy poured into fruitcake mix. She wriggled her shoulders as Kyrene and her locked eyes. Kyrene stopped at the table, hand on hip, hair mussed, skirt twisted, and dropped the paper bag at Aphrodite’s feet.

“You look like you had fun.” Aphrodite smirked, eyes glittering behind the lavender lenses.

“Tons, thanks for the opportunity.” Kyrene licked her lip.

Aphrodite extended her hand like a princess and Kyrene chuckled, took it and kissed it gallantly. They fluttered their fingers at each other in a cheeky wave and Kyrene sashayed away, unclipping her name tag and tossing it into a palm tree pot as she went.

Eros frowned at the Penelope’s Weaving bag. “Momma, what was that about?”

“OH MY FATES!” A screech echoed down the mall to them, followed by a tumult of squeals and gasps and frantic shuffles to the walls. Parents scooped children up protectively and teenagers burst into laughter and scrabbled for their camera phones.

Aphrodite lounged back in her seat and watched as a great hunk of molten gold came charging down the street, furious and amused and intrigued shoppers in its wake.

Eros and Ampelus twisted in their chairs. 

“Is that…”

“DAD?”

Ares, naked as the day he was born, ran full pelt from three bellowing security guards, stirring and parting the crowd like a whale through the surf, pursued relentlessly by shock and awe.

“Whoah! Did you see that guy?”

“Isn’t that the War God?”

“Nice!”

“Oh My Gods preserve us!"

“Don’t look, Darling!”

“Dude, are you filming this? Film it! Film it!”

“What the fuck!”

Ares hove close and shot past them, then skidded to a halt and sprang back, his face radiating red, his shoulders and his chest pumping wildly from the chase, his cock still bobbing at his thighs with thwarted excitement. He glowered down at Aphrodite, like a descending missile, his jaw clamped hard and his fists clenched. She took in the pleasing sight of his glistening musculature, then flicked her eyes up to meet his, sipping her coffee leisurely.

“YOU!” Ares roared.

Aphrodite subtly slipped the bag of his clothes under her chair with her foot. “Well, hi there, Sunbeam. I know today was a dress down day, but I think you took it a little far.”

“You did this! This was you, I fucking know it!”

Aphrodite put her cappuccino down with a light _clink._ “I’m just here having a nice coffee with our son.”

“LIKE FUCK!” Ares put his fists on his hips and his cock bounced.

Eros stared livid at him. Ampelus’ eyes fluttered wide and her cheeks tinted, as she tilted her head curiously. Eros gasped and threw his hand over her eyes.

“There he is!” One of the security guards, periodically lost in the crowd of onlookers, pointed a truncheon towards Ares. The other two followed his lead, stampeding towards them. 

Ares spun to them and back in a panic. “Babe, make me invisible!”

Aphrodite sucked in through her teeth and spread her hands apologetically. “So sorry, Honey Bear, no can do. It’s a no-powers day for me, I need to recharge.”

“APH! I AM GOING TO END UP ON A FUCKING LIST! DO IT!”

“OK! OK!” She flickered her fingers at him. “Oh no!” She put a hand to her cheek and batted her eyes helplessly. “It doesn’t seem to be working.”

Ares glared like a furnace. He glanced at the gaining guards, then saw the maitre d’ through the window striding for the coffee house door. He ground his teeth, grabbed the back of Aphrodite’s chair and leaned down so they were nose to nose. Her body smouldered deliciously as she caught the scent of his sweat and the powerful pulses of his fury.

“You are so fucking in for it.” He growled, the threat rumbling like the movements of tectonic plates in his chest.

Aphrodite squirmed and sucked her lip. “You promise?” 

She poked her tongue out at him. He gruffed, licked the tip of it, and whirled away, bare feet screeching on the marble tiles. He vanished at a frenzied speed around the corner. The security team rushed past the table.

The maitre d’ hurried to Aphrodite’s side, his neat hair unravelling between his satyr horns. “My lady! I am so sorry! I didn’t see the brute in time! And after you asked not to be disturbed!”

Aphrodite put a hand to her supposedly racing heart and her voice trilled weakly. “It’s quite alright, I’m OK. Just a little shaken.”

“Let me offer you something on the house, I’m so terribly sorry.”

“Oh, that’s really not necessary.” She snatched up the bag under her chair and perked up. “But, if you insist, your best table, please, and we’ll start with a round of Mai Tais.”

“Of course.” The maitre d’ pressed his hands together in willing supplication. “I’ll just go and ready the table.”

He shuffled away, his hooves clopping urgently. Eros, virtually trembling with rage, slowly lowered his hand from Ampelus’ face.

“Hmm,” she giggled softly to the table, “I can see where you get it from.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

Aphrodite peeked into the Penelope's Weaving bag. Perched on top of Ares' crumpled clothes was an exquisitely sculpted turquoise bra, cups like seashells, threaded with tiny crystals and topped with lilac lace. It was astonishingly pretty and extremely well-made. Tucked into the strap was a little square of paper: _He was clearly about to get this for you, K._

Aphrodite warmed in her chest, she couldn’t help but smile.

[What a fucking day! I thought I was in therapy to deal with the emotional labour of working with sex, but turns out not! Turns out it's STUFF LIKE THIS! 

I am not exaggerating!

I have never been over-dramatic in my life!

Ugh! Well, I’m glad my pain entertains you, because it only gets worse. Ma may have half the nymphs on Olympus in her pocket, but Dad has a secret weapon. Someone so devious, so industrious in the pursuit of victory in family conflict, that even the king of the gods fears her wrath. 

Hebe.]


	4. Paper Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thursday. Ares unleashes his secret weapon, but Hebe's prank is even bigger than he bargained for.

[You know what? I’m already so exhausted remembering Thursday, let’s just get right into it. I was working over in Thebes. You know, working, that thing I used to do on weekdays before my insane parents took over my life with their apparently endless shenanigans. When suddenly, I get a summons coming to me from Cyprus. Now, Cyprus is Momma’s special patron island, so I don’t get a whole lot of business there. I head straight over to find out what they need, and when I arrive, turns out the summons is from fucking Dad… Good Gods, Persie, what a mess…]

Eros stiffened beside his father, arms folded over his chest, lips sucked into his teeth, surveying the scene from where they hovered invisibly above the treetops. His wings flexed irritably against the growing tension in his back. His hands clenched on his biceps.

“You. TPed. The whole. Of Cyprus.”

Ares rubbed his jaw and spoke a little awkwardly. “Yep.” He drummed his thumb on the corner of his mouth and clucked his tongue. “It's kinda bigger than I remember.”

Eros rounded on him, wings ruffling. “Yeah! It's an island!”

Ares grinned and shrugged.

Eros flung his hands into his hair and continued to take in the shambles. The beautiful, tranquil ocean gem of Cyprus was shrouded and tangled with toilet paper. It fountained down the slopes of terracotta rooves, wound up columns, spilled over the streets, streaked ragged across the beach and bundled into bobbing boats, wove through the branches of palms and poplars, rippled in the breeze, and turned the neat, pleasant island into a chaotic jungle of white.

Eros pinched the bridge of his nose. “How did you even get hold of this much toilet paper without arousing suspicion?”

Ares rubbed the back of his neck. “Hebe said no one wants to know how the sausage is made.”

“Hebe.” Eros snapped his fingers. “I should’ve known.”

A puff of gold glitter on Ares’ other side made them both jump. It cleared and revealed the glowing buttercup form of Hebe, her white dress fluttering around her in the breeze, her hair in a tight ballet bun on the top of her head. 

Eros narrowed his eyes at her. “Hebe.”

“Nephew.” She nodded demurely at him, then turned to Ares. “It’s getting worse.”

Ares grimaced.

“What’s getting worse?” Eros asked testily, his ruby gaze flicking between them both.

Hebe pretended she hadn’t heard him.

“Well…” Ares gave him an uncharacteristically guilty look that put his stomach in a vice. “I didn’t summon you just to be like ‘look, I did a thing’, I was trying to keep you out of it…”

“You were failing.”

“The thing is, this prank…”

“Yes?”

“Might have had…”

“Hmm?”

“A few unforeseen consequences.”

A breeze blustered past them and both their black cloaks whipped across the blue sky.

Eros grit his teeth. “What consequences?”

Ares nodded towards the main town square. “It’s better if I show you.”

Foreboding and frustration building in his entire body, Eros let Hebe and Ares lead him down to land between the agora and Aphrodite’s temple. The streets were overflowing with people in a state of frantic confusion. They gathered the toilet paper in their hands and wept into it, ran their fingers along where it looped from the canopies of market stalls, trembled and ran back and forth to each other, jabbered desperately with clumps of it clutched to their chests, tripped over it and kissed the ground, leaned out of windows and gathered it into their homes while others weren’t looking.

“It must be a sign from the goddess!” one old woman wailed, “It is white! She tells us to purify ourselves of sin!”

“No!” a short man with a twizzle of beard exclaimed, “It seems to be some kind of papyrus! She demands poetry and learning!”

A girl tried to run in terror into her house, but toilet paper was stretched across the doorway. Her father leaped forward and grabbed her shoulders. “Do not break the goddess’ gift!”

“You say that.” A woman in a veil and a large copper necklace stepped forward, gesturing to a ream drooping from an orange tree. “But look! Serrations! I believe the purpose of the papyrus is to be broken into equal squares, and distributed among the populace.”

“But what for?” the father cried. 

“Surely, if we were all meant to have a piece, it would have been delivered to us like that,” another woman said harshly.

“She is testing our goodness!” the old woman shrieked, clapping her hands over her heart in piety, “Will we share it, or will we squabble and hoard it?”

A boy gathering a bundle up through his window froze.

“Then send us food! Or gold!” a large man boomed, “This is nothing!”

He was immediately spat on by four devoted followers of Aphrodite.

"You should be honoured it adorns your door," the harsh woman said to the father, "It could be to make your daughter's wedding dress."

"There's so much!" a tall, scrawny man piped up, "Enough for garments for all of us to wear at her festivals!" 

A murmur of agreement from a few townsfolk. 

Eros groaned and buried his face in his hands. Hebe snickered maniacally. Ares bit his thumbnail.

“It got a bit out of hand,” he mumbled.

“YOU THINK?” Eros snapped.

“It’s at its best at the temple.” Hebe rubbed her little hands together with a menacing grin. “The priestesses have locked the doors and are burning every weed and incense they have, trying to get through to Aphrodite.”

“So the people are in turmoil and their leadership is high as balls.” Eros sighed. “Fucking stellar, Dad, really great work.”

“I didn’t know this would happen!” Ares gestured wildly in self-defence. “I figured they’d all think it was inconvenient, get a little mad, I’d get a boost, your Ma gets her comeuppance, they all clean it up and it goes away.”

“Nothing ‘goes away’ with mortals, Dad!” Eros yelled. “It goes in poems, in histories, in myths! They will be telling this story for generations! It will travel across the world! One day, millennia from now, they’ll teach the great papyrus storm of Cyprus in schools! Your fucking prank has just reshaped the religion of an entire people!”

Hebe cackled and clapped. “I know! Amazing, isn’t it?”

“You,” Eros pointed at her fiercely, “Are damn lucky I don’t tell Nana!”

Hebe blew a raspberry at him.

“Kids, come on, we don’t have time to fall out.” Ares spread his arms between them. “Point is, Eros, your Ma is about to get a very weird bunch of prayers and I would really like to tone this down before that happens. But all I have in my arsenal is make them have a massive brawl, which I don’t think will help.”

“No, Dad!” Eros bellowed, “Nothing you can do will ‘tone this down’, not in any situation! If this week has taught all of us anything, it is that you are physically incapable of toning things down! Momma’s gonna lose her shit! Why couldn’t you just tell her you didn’t forget about your anniversary? Why did you have to retaliate when she very fairly got mad about it? WHY WAS I BORN INTO THIS FAMILY? I COULD HAVE BEEN A FLOWER NYMPH AND SPENT MY DAYS WATERING PLANTS AND SEDUCING CUTE FARM BOYS!” He finished with his feathers all sticking out at odd angles and his shoulders heaving up and down, his face like a rooster’s, just after a fox got in the coop.

Ares and Hebe stared startled at him. 

Hebe, hovering at Ares’ shoulders, leaned into his ear. “Yeesh, what a drama queen.”

Ares looked at her and pinched his finger and thumb together in a _Yeah, a little._

“I’M STANDING RIGHT HERE!” Eros stamped his foot.

“So am I.” A low, icy, velvet voice crept up all three spines. 

They froze and turned around.

Aphrodite stood a few feet behind them, her red dress flowing like vengeful blood down her hourglass curves, white lightning blazing in her hair and pupils and sputtering from her fingertips. She looked like a summer storm cloud, like the smoke and fire coming off a weapons forge.

“Well!” Hebe let out a high, nervous laugh. “Look at the time!” She vanished in a shower of gold glitter.

“Rat.” Ares muttered under his breath.

“Momma!” Eros squeaked, “I had nothing to do with it!”

“Oh, I know, Baby Bear.” Aphrodite prowled towards them and they could feel the earth of her island rumbling under her feet. “This has your father written all over it.”

Eros bristled and rolled his eyes as her fury swept over them and he felt Ares’ desire spike. “Dad, ugh! I’m like six inches from you, control yourself.” 

“I’m trying! She’s really mad! It… has an effect…”

“It has an effect, does it?” Aphrodite spoke with the quiet, unyielding, destructive force of the undertow of the sea, about to kick your legs out from under you and pin you beneath the waves. “So you can sense it, then? How angry I am. How unbelievably, irreversibly, divinely enraged I am. With. You.”

Ares could. It threw him into a kind of trance. Not calm, not a meditation. It spiralled and clouded and hurled him. His heart raced, the roots of his hair burned, excitement ribboned down his spine, the soles of his feet and the insides of his thighs prickled, his stomach fluttered and he flooded with a delicious ache. It had been teasing him all week, restlessness and want and elation under his skin, rising to the surface and setting him on fire even at the thought of her. 

_Keep it together, just two more days._

“You can knock that off!” Aphrodite snapped and thumped his chest, clanging on his breastplate. 

Ares winced. “It’s not on purpose!” _Ish._

Aphrodite made a long, resounding noise of fury in her throat, her whole body vibrating with rage. Two forks of lightning hit the sand and sent pebbles skimming into the shrubs. “I am going to deal with this, Ares. And then I am going to deal with you.”

Ares grinned.

“You will NOT like it.”

“Might do.”

Aphrodite simmered, pulsing violet. She extended a long, taloned finger and hooked him with the lethal point of her fingernail under the chin. “We,” she hissed, “Are in a fight.”

“We,” Ares leaned into the spike of her touch, looming over her, peeling his lips back over his teeth, spilling flame into his eyes, “Are at war.”

She dragged her fingernail over the supple, sensitive skin of his throat as she relinquished him, unspooling a soft moan from his chest. They held each other’s eyes for an agonisingly long moment, the mess of anger and passion battering at Eros. He snorted and stomped several paces away and made a point of facing in the opposite direction, drumming his fingers impatiently on his forearm. Violet electricity and amber fire crackled in the inches between Ares and Aphrodite’s faces. The breeze through the leaves took on the sound of blades sharpening. The sea snarled. Heat surged in the air. The ground rumbled again.

Aphrodite broke their gaze, turned sharply to her left, and began to march towards the temple for damage control. Ares let his breath go, his knees weakening. He rubbed the tingling back of his neck.

“You still love me?” He called after her, with a slight nervous creak in his voice.

Aphrodite flipped him off over her shoulder.

“That’s not a no.” Ares shrugged, and vanished in a streak of scarlet shimmer.

Eros tripped after his mother, as she stalked up the dusty rise to the temple.

“Momma?” he began with concern.

She turned to him, her eyes still boiling. “You know your dad's a fast healer?”

Eros shrank back. “I don't like where this is going.”

“Is a car bomb too much?”

“YES!”

She didn’t look convinced. They reached the temple door, flanked by myrtle bushes in large terracotta pots. A frieze hung overhead of Aphrodite rising from the sea, surrounded by doves, her arms thrown up in triumph and radiant rays of the sun fanning behind her.

They phased through the door. 

They both instantly burst out coughing as their nostrils and mouths and eyes were flooded with pungent smoke, pouring from brackets all along the walls and stands between the columns, the seemingly entire supply of herbs and oils being burned at once, filling the temple with a dense, rich, spiced fog. Through the haze, the priestesses knelt at the altar, eyes revolving, hands beating chests, voices braiding into a symphony of supplication. Aphrodite glimmered with it. She patted Eros on the arm to tell him to stay put, and floated into the air. She soared over their heads and landed on the altar, in front of a larger than life statue of herself. The statue stood bare-breasted and lounging against a plinth, her lower half robed in soft blue, her hair glimmering gold under a laurel wreath, one elegant hand raised to the sky with a dove perching on it, its wings spread grandly. Aphrodite rolled her shoulders and stepped forward. She vanished into the statue. The priestesses hummed and whined. With the clunk and shuffle of stone, the statue came to life. The priestesses gasped and clutched each other, tears streaming down their faces.

“She comes to us!”

“Oh, Lady of Cyprus!”

“Smile-Loving Mistress!”

The statue fixed fearsome lavender eyes on them and a deep, rolling voice echoed through the chamber. “Friends, followers, you have received my gift.”

“Yes, Oh Lady!” the head priestess exclaimed, grasping a sprig of myrtle, “But we do not understand!”

“It is a special fabric known only to the gods,” the statue boomed, “Gather it, and with it make the sails for a fleet of ships. I wish for the governor and his closest advisers to sail to Egypt and further our love with them.”

The priestesses burst into relieved sobs. “Of course, Dearest Lady! We will do so! Thank you for this greatest of gifts!”

“You serve me well.” The statue gracefully inclined its head to another burst of ecstatic wailing. “It will not be forgotten.”

The statue shone, then dimmed, then fell still again. Aphrodite stepped back onto the altar and nodded to Eros over the heads of the gabbling priestesses. He nodded too and phased back through the door. 

A moment later, Aphrodite appeared at his side, dusting off her hands and shaking her skirts out. “I always feel like I need a shower after that.”

“Why sails?” Eros inquired.

Aphrodite tossed her hair and set off back down the rise. “Because I’ve been trying to get rid of that fucking governor for months. I’ll tell Posey to send a storm, those sails should do the trick, or rather not do the trick at all.”

“Right,” Eros sighed, “Drowning people we don’t like. That bodes well for the rest of this week.”

[It did not bode well for the rest of this week.]


	5. Love is Permanent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friday. Aphrodite makes sure this prank war has long-lasting consequences for Ares.

[Do I sound tired, Persie? Do I? You’ve heard four days now, wouldn’t you be tired? We don’t all get to live with the love of our lives in a very large, very quiet place, filled with cute dogs and sexy goths. Some of us live in crazed pits of eternal punishment, caught in perpetual revenge cycles and constantly, very uncomfortably aware of exactly how horny our parents are at any given moment. When I say any given moment, by the way, I mean at literally all moments. Thank Fates for Ampelus, she’s like the only normal person I have access to now you’ve moved down South. It was real sweet, actually, she took me out on Friday morning for brunch. Momma had some appointments and gave her the day off and she texted me. Cute, right? She said she could see this week had been a little rough on me and asked if I wanted to unwind with some mimosas and waffles. Bless her, she has no idea how to combine foods, it’s almost like she’s not been to a restaurant before. But it was actually super nice. You know, we just get on really easily, so it was like this lovely, no effort couple of hours, just…

I am not going “on and on” about Ampelus. I’m catching you up on my week, she happened to be a part of my week. Not telling you we went to brunch would be Ampelus-erasure.

Uuuugh, I’m not listening to this. She does not have a crush on me. I would know, I’m the god of crushes. 

I know Daddy Death has that dumbass theory that my powers don’t work properly when I’m involved. But I don’t tell him which filing cabinets to keep which ghosts in, or which hankies to sneeze gold into, or whatever he does, so he can butt out.

Right, where was I? Friday. I know people think I don’t see Momma’s dark side. I do, I really do. I just get it, you know? I get why it’s there and why she needs it, why we all do. But, fuck, Friday really tested my faith.]

Aphrodite sat at the kitchen table, cobbling a hydra head together out of foam and pipe cleaners for Pragma’s school play. The radio was on quietly in the background, some bouncy, acoustic number making her foot tap as she puffed at loose strands of hair straying from her bun into her face. She blobbed marker pen onto a ping-pong ball to make an eye, taped it to a pipe cleaner, and drove the other end of the wire through the foam. The hydra looked like it was doing a deranged, goofy wink. 

“It’ll do,” she muttered.

The door clicked and Agape came bounding in, spritely and covered in machine oil. Ares followed her, wiping his hands on a rag, his tank top streaked black and a splodge of it softening his sharp nose. The heady, metallic scent rushed into the kitchen.

“Hey, Mommy.” Agape beamed.

Aphrodite smiled. “How was the bike?”

“It’s…” Agape looked sidelong at her dad, clearly reluctant to give him praise, “It’s actually pretty cool.”

“What!” Ares laughed. “Can’t be! Not your dad, not _cool_!”

“Shut uuuup,” Agape groaned, “I’m gonna shower.” She skipped upstairs.

Ares watched her go, with the look of a bear watching a cub catch a fish for the first time. Aphrodite’s eyes slid to him. He’d been trying to get Agape off her phone, taking her running, showing her how to box. It had mostly been a wash out, but fixing up his old motorcycle seemed to be a hit. He was pretty good at getting the kids out of their shells, she had to give him that. 

His gaze wandered from the stairs to her. “Checking me out?”

“No.” She put her nose in the air.

He grinned wickedly and sauntered behind her chair. He dropped the rag on the table and stroked the back of her neck with his knuckles. “Come on, I know the grease monkey look drives you crazy.”

“It does not,” Aphrodite grumbled, tensing against the snaking feeling in her spine, “I’m a woman of class.”

“Exactly.” Ares’ fingers unfurled and traced down and around her neck, making her tingle between her thighs. He bent to her ear and ran his lips gently around it. “Every woman of class needs her bit of rough.”

Aphrodite jerked her head away and turned to shoot him a look. “You’re literal royalty.”

Ares shrugged. “You’d never know it though, would ya?”

Aphrodite tutted. His eyes dropped down her body. His machine oil scent made her light-headed.

“Hey,” he husked, “Am I still in the dog house?”

She sighed and flickered her gaze over his grubby tank top and the shadows of his defined torso underneath. “Truce.”

Ares raised his eyebrows, still leaning round her. “You have literally never declared a truce in thousands of years of life.”

She ran her fingertips over his collarbone, speaking dreamily into the warmth of his body. “Well, I am now.” She pushed him back and stood, smiling at how effortlessly he moved to mirror her. “Come here, I want to show you something.”

She slipped round him and hopped up to sit on the table. Ares took a step back and put his hands in his pockets and cocked his head curiously. She felt a wriggle in her belly. She glanced at him with a hint of timidity, drawing his curiosity out further. She looked back down into her lap, bunched the knee-length hem of her loose skirt in her hands, and slowly drew it up. The curtain rose on a calligraphic tattoo on the front of her thigh, flushed pink at the edges, still fresh. A black line design of a rose and myrtle floral border framing a date and the words:

_Ares_

_Let us take our delight together_

Ares’ face wilted and bloomed. His lips dropped apart and he took a soft breath and held it. One hand lifted from his pocket and folded over his mouth, then fell to his heart. He gazed at the tattoo, silence heavy in the room, except for the hum of the radio.

“Aph…” he murmured, his voice breaking, as if he was too full and struggling to contain it. “Wow…”

“The date is the date we met,” Aphrodite said softly, “And the words underneath…”

“They’re what I said to you when we first…” He let out his breath in a quiet laugh. He raised his eyes to hers and they were shining brighter than fresh sap in midday sunshine.

Aphrodite smiled bashfully and tucked her stray hair behind her ear. She looked down. “In all the craziness this week, I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but I had the appointment this morning.”

Ares ducked to meet her gaze, his hand still rubbing over his heart, stammering a little as he spoke in almost a whisper, as if afraid he might scare the ink off her skin. “But you said you’d never get a lover’s name on your body. It was the cosmetic golden rule. It was too permanent, too risky. I don’t understand.”

“Well…” Aphrodite pressed her lips together and stroked his chest. She finally brought her eyes back up to his, large and sparkling and berry sweet. “This is permanent.” Her smile was wide, but vulnerable. She laughed softly, a touch anxious. “If risky.”

Ares echoed her, clearing his throat to drive away a swell of tears. He sniffed and smiled and coiled a lock of her hair around his finger. He kept his hand there, cupping her face, and looked with profound sincerity into her eyes. “Nothing in the world is more worth the risk than this.” He brushed his thumb across her cheek. “Nothing.”

She beamed and laid her hand over his and squeezed it.

He sniffed again and took a sharp, controlled breath, gazing back down at the pretty ink design on her thigh. “I can’t believe you did this.” He laughed warmly. “Shit, you’re gonna make me bawl.”

Aphrodite giggled and reached up and interlaced her hands at the back of his neck and pulled him to her. Their kiss was slow, indulgent, devoted. Their lips sealed together and their tongues gently knotted and they moved in harmony, taking care of each other, giving to each other. He slipped his free hand to the small of her back and circled it, massaging her tenderly, letting her know that he was there, that he would hold her up, always. She sank gratefully into the kiss. They hadn’t touched like this in days, it had been all combat and competition. She sighed and drifted and melted. She could smell his natural, earthy, singed scent underneath the dregs of working on the bike. Her blood flowed to the surface and called to him.

She pulled back before she lost herself completely. She parted her legs and tugged him to stand between them and teased the nape of his neck in little, light circles.

“So, um…” she began shyly, “I was thinking…” She trailed off, blushing and looking away.

“What, Plum Blossom?” Ares asked reassuringly.

“Well…” Aphrodite looked back into his face, her eyes large and hopeful and unguarded. “I was wondering if, maybe, you wanted to get one like it too? Like, the same, but I don’t know, you can put something different on the border, and then my name obviously, not yours, and I don’t know if there’s a different line you’d like under it, it’s up to you, of course, I just…”

He stopped her nervous babbling with a pressing kiss. He drew back beaming, his red blush glowing almost blindingly. “Are you kidding? I’d love that!”

Her lashes fluttered and she let out a high sigh of relief. “Yeah?”

“Yeah!” Ares cupped her face and kissed her again. “Gods, you are the most fucking adorable thing. I can’t believe you were shy to ask me that, it’s almost like I don’t make it embarrassingly fucking obvious how badly I’ve fallen at your fucking perfect feet. I would have your name on my body a thousand times if you asked, I’d make it so you couldn’t see my skin anymore.” 

He pulled her into kiss after kiss, smiling wide against her lips. She laughed and returned them, glimmering with a happy blush. He broke from her after several long moments and leaned back to take the tattoo in again, still holding her face in his hands. He had smeared machine oil from his nose to hers. 

“So, where am I getting this ink then?” he asked jovially.

“Well,” Aphrodite purred, “I got it there because I know it’s one of your favourite spots. So, if you’re into it, I thought maybe you could get yours on my favourite spot.”

Ares grinned even brighter, reminding her stunningly why she called him Sunbeam. “And where’s your favourite spot, Beautiful?”

Aphrodite bit her lip with a twinkle in her eye. She reached around and pinched his ass. 

He chuckled and it rolled into a low, teasing growl. He stole another kiss. “You got it.”

He wrapped her in his arms and buried his face in her neck and breathed in her scent of citrus and sugar and crafting glue. His heart skipped in disbelief and utter joy. He knew how important being able to cut and run was to Aphrodite. It wasn’t that she was flighty or fickle or cold. It’s just she knew how it felt to be possessed, to be claimed and bartered and called heartless for wanting something more. Those words he had spoken to her, those words that now lived on her eternal body, they had been whispered in the night in his brother’s home. They never talked about it, it was so long ago now, too much pain, too much of a mess. She had been given away to Hephaestus as some kind of consolation for some nonsense wrong no one could even recall, nothing more than a participation trophy at a kids’ sports match. Her, the eldest and fiercest and most beloved of all the gods, treated like some mineral that could be mined out of the ground. Ares had watched her say the required words at the wedding, had asked her how she was every time he visited his brother, accepted her lies that she was fine, that she was happy, and slowly, inevitably, become desperately addicted to the secret anger that gushed from her body and thickened and drugged the air in any room she entered. Their affair had been discovered, of course, and the punishments had been humiliating - her banished, him bound. But they weathered them, and the second he was free he went in search of her. He found her on Cyprus, bathing in the sea and the sunrise, more wondrous than any creature that had ever lived or ever could. They hadn’t been apart since. But he never proposed, never asked for any sign that she in any way belonged to him. They kept it open and they never made promises. He spent every moment with her trying to show her: she had him forever, ride or die, unconditionally, but she didn’t owe herself to him. He would never ask to be given what had once been taken. And now, this. Gods, what this must have taken her. Something to tell the world, something to tell herself, and him, every day, for all eternity. She was his. It was the two of them, forever. It always had been.

He screwed his eyes shut, tears rising again. He blinked them back furiously, crushing her to him. He loved how strong her body was, how he could hold her like this and she didn’t even flinch.

He drew back and cupped her face again and pressed his lips to her forehead. He looked into her eyes. “You’re so brave.”

She shrugged with false modesty and giggled.

He glanced at the clock on the wall. He had a meeting with Zeus soon, it killed him, all he wanted was to be here. 

“Shit,” he gruffed, “I gotta go. But see you later at the parlour?”

“Yeah.” Aphrodite drummed her palms on his chest playfully. “Exciting.”

He grinned. “Always, with you.” 

He wrenched himself from her with his heart rending and dragged his feet to the door. He opened it and turned back, resting his temple on it and looking at her with keen reluctance to leave. “I love you, Aph.”

“I love you, Ares.” She blew him a kiss.

His heart soared. He mimed catching the kiss and pocketing it, with a wink. He gazed at her as long as he could get away with, as she gave him an amused look. Eventually he managed to tear his eyes away. He groaned and rolled around the door dramatically and sloped out, letting it swing shut behind him.

Aphrodite watched him vanish. She sighed. She pressed her hand to her heart to settle it. 

A cunning, victorious smile slipped over her lips. 

“Sucker.”

Eros bolted into the room, his wings out and his cheeks flushed, gabbling frantically. “What do you mean ‘sucker’? Momma, what do you mean ‘sucker’? I heard the good last half of that and I was all choked up and happy as a clam and then you said ‘sucker’! Why did you say ‘sucker’?”

Aphrodite turned to him with villainous delight. “If there is one thing more gullible than what’s in a man’s dumb skull, it’s what’s in his dumb pants, and if there’s one thing more gullible than that, it’s his big, dumb heart.”

Eros clapped his hand to his forehead. “You are the goddess of LOVE.”

“I know!” She threw her head back and cackled like a witch. “The power!”

Eros scrunched his quiff into his fist. “You’ve lost control!”

“No!” She kept cackling, clapping rapidly like a sea lion, her eyes bright and crazed. “That’s what’s so beautiful, Baby Bear! I am in complete control! It’s your father who’s lost!”

“Because he sincerely cares for and trusts you!”

“I know, right? What an ass!”

Eros pressed his fingertips into his eyes and made the sound of a car trying to start without gas. “The tattoo’s fake, isn’t it?”

She just kept cackling.

“Have we seriously reached the point where you’re doodling onto your skin to trick him into… Fates know what? It's even red around the edge! The detail!”

Aphrodite flapped her hand at him. “The red doesn't mean much, you can do that with blush.”

“Oh, Fates.” Eros massaged his temples and chanted miserably to the floor. “Fates, Fates, Fates. What are you going to do to him?”

Aphrodite tapped the side of her nose and hopped off the table. She was still chortling away as she bounced towards the garden.

Eros called after her, crossing his arms tightly with his hackles up. "Momma, whatever you're planning, I guarantee you are going too far!" 

Aphrodite wheeled around and fixed him with a withering look. "He forgot our anniversary, Eros. There is no such thing as too far!" 

[Momma? The type to hold a grudge? Why would you say that, Persie? I can't imagine what would give you that impression. 

YES, SHE'S THE TYPE TO HOLD A GRUDGE. 

Gods, I can see him now. That dopey smile on his big, stupid face, holding her hand as he lies on his front in the parlour, none the wiser, as the pre-paid, love-struck tattoo artist does exactly what Momma told him, against all professional ethics. 

What tattoo did he come home with? Well, I really wish I didn't know the answer to that question, but tragically I do. Stamped for eternity on my father's ass, on the dumb fucking ass of the man who gave me 50% of my genetics…

_This pony is property of Aphrodite._

_Momma spanks me here._

It did not go down well.]

Ares and Aphrodite slammed into the kitchen. The argument was in its second hour, having started at the parlour and continued throughout the flight home, startling pigeons and completely throwing off the theories of a small school of astronomers. Their voices shook the foundations of the house as they came blazing through the door. 

Ares opened the door for her, then banged it behind them as he followed her inside. "Property of Aphrodite? _Property?"_

Aphrodite threw her purse on the table, marching round it to the other side. "Tell me I’m wrong!" 

Anger strummed Ares' spine, his shoulders hulked. "It’s not about right and wrong! It’s about respect! I sleep around! I do sports! People are gonna see this!" 

She pressed her palms onto the table and leaned over it towards him, brimming with devious glee. "That was very much the point, Lemon Cake."

He prowled to his side of the table and leaned too. “I have a _reputation_ to uphold!”

She threw her head back in a high, harsh laugh. “Your only reputation is as my giddy-up good boy and you know it!”

“That is not true!”

“Then why haven’t you taken any issue with the spanking part of the message!”

Ares snarled at her and shoved off the table and paced. He looked away and his voice dropped, sullen and sore. “I can't believe I let myself think for a minute…”

Aphrodite faltered. She searched his face warily. The air grew dense, strained.

He glanced at her and rolled his eyes, folding his arms so his biceps jutted. His tone turned bitter. “I can’t believe you drew a fake tattoo on yourself and I fucking fell for it.”

Aphrodite stilled. She swallowed. Her stomach rolled. She put her hands on her hips and stuck her chin in the air proudly to cover her sudden nerves. “I didn’t.”

He looked back at her. His pulsating red blush flickered clementine. “What?”

“The…” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and spoke quickly to his chest. “The tattoo is real.”

“W-what?”

She blew out through her nose and said it slower through her teeth. “The tattoo is real.”

Ares’ shoulders dropped. His face softened. A fissure sneaked into his voice. “You got that for real?”

“Yeah.” She admitted it too breezily, avoiding his eye, her cheeks burning. She tossed her hair again and looked stonily at him. “For the prank.”

Ares growled and she jumped like a hare as he launched himself forward and tore around the table, coming close and rushing her with heat. He grabbed her hem and wrenched it up. She hissed and slapped his arm, as he caught the tender skin with his knuckles. 

He stared at his own name, his own long ago whisper, fire in his eyes, his breath coming short. His voice lowered and husked leonine. “This was not for the prank.”

She bared her teeth and scratched his collar. “Yes it was!”

“It fucking was not!” He seized the underside of her thigh.

“Yes it WAS!” She grasped the straps of his tank top.

He made a furious sound in his throat and glared pleadingly upwards. “UUUUGH! Do you have any idea how much more ridiculous it is, if you got it just for the BIT!”

“SO?”

“SO, just admit you fucking love me forever and that’s why you got it!”

“OH!” She yanked on his straps to pull his face to her level and bit his nose. “You are so ARROGANT!”

“My fucking NAME is on your body!” 

His chest billowed as his breath came hotter and heavier, searing her neck as he scraped his hand under her thigh to grab her ass and haul her to him. She groaned and thrust against the mound behind his zipper. 

His blazing, blinding eyes bore down on her. “You put it PERMANENTLY on your fucking perfect, beautiful body! Either you're crazy about me, or you're JUST CRAZY!”

Aphrodite struggled like a mouse in a trap, the blood pounding in her abdomen. His grip only tightened and his other hand clenched on her arm. 

“I'd have to be just crazy to be crazy about you!” she spat.

Ares roared and spun her, her skin scorching under his hard press. He threw her onto the table, her arms flying back to catch herself. Her breath fled.

He flung himself forward and pinned her there with his piercing gaze, his overpowering arms caging her either side. His voice was cascading lava. “Just admit this relationship is fucking amazing and it’s fucking forever! LIKE YOUR FUCKING TATTOO!”

“NO!” Aphrodite screamed. “IT WAS FOR PRANKS!” 

She started to rip the buttons apart on her blouse. His pupils yawned.

“YOU’RE INSANE!” He cast off his tank top, his hair tousling. “YOU’RE A FUCKING NIGHTMARE!”

“UGH!” She threw the ruined blouse over his shoulder. “AND YOU’RE A FUCKING BITCH!”

“YEAH?” His belt went flying.

“YEAH!” So did her bra.

“WELL, I AM _YOUR_ FUCKING BITCH!” 

He plunged like an incendiary bomb and smothered her, gasping and clawing, under his excruciating, intoxicating heat.

[I really wish they would have less sex in the communal spaces.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Let us take our delight together" is a quote from the story of Ares and Aphrodite's affair in Homer's Odyssey, source: theoi.com's page on Aphrodite's loves.


	6. Peak Performance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saturday. It's the day of the Big 500 and Ares plays his final hand.
> 
> Pop this on when they step out of the elevator, would ya? [My Funny Valentine, Frank Sinatra.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Are-c0BLyIg)

[Saturday came. I cannot tell you how much I had been dreading Saturday. Dad’s supposed big surprise, Momma’s bottled up anger. 

Oh, yeah, this was her bottled up. I know, right?

According to the rules of engagement, as far as my parents have ever played by them, it was Dad’s move. Momma had played her card on Friday, now it was her turn to wait and see if he retaliated, or she officially got the last word. She was brutally on edge all day. At one point, Ludus set off a jack-in-the-box and she threw the baseball she was picking up across the room and broke a lamp. It was like living with a ticking bomb.

Dad was nowhere to be seen. He disappeared before breakfast and just left us all to wonder what in the realms was coming for us. I was nervous as a lobster over a stew pot. Thank Fates for Ampelus showing up.

Don’t say a word.]

The doorbell rang and Aphrodite leaped out of her skin, which made Eros leap out of his skin, which made six kids leap out of their skins and Agape roll her eyes and keep scrolling her phone. 

“I’ll get it,” Eros said, steadying his heart with a hand to his chest. 

“If it’s your father, don’t let him in!” Aphrodite commanded, “Also, I’m changing the locks.”

Eros wriggled his shoulder blades to settle his wings under his prickling skin, and went to the door. A strange mix of sudden calm and spiking anxiety hit him, as Ampelus’ gentle, open face appeared, framed by her overflow of blackberry curls. 

“Eros!” She smiled, her dazzling, golden eyes widening and the chain adorning her ear catching the sun behind her.

Eros' voice escaped him. He cleared his throat and felt his smile spill over his face unbidden. “Hey!”

They smiled at each other for a long moment. Ampelus’ thick brows and dark, full lips gave her face a soft strength that automatically soothed Eros. The feeling was vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

He shook himself. “What’s up?” 

Ampelus’ eyes shifted side to side. “It’s a bit odd. I got a text from your Dad.”

Eros’ jaw set.

Ampelus held up her phone and showed him the message:

_Planning something for the boss. Can you go hang out with Eros at home and I’ll call you both later? Don’t tell her I sent you._

Eros whimpered and dropped his head and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

“Something wrong?” Ampelus asked sympathetically, “Should I go?”

Eros snapped his head up. “No!” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, no. No. Come in. Let’s hang out.”

_Why is my heart beating so fast?_

Ampelus beamed. She moved to pass him, he leaned the same way as her. She leaned the other way. So did he. He cursed himself and took a decisive stride out of the way. She stepped shyly through the door into the kitchen.

“Who is it?” Aphrodite’s sharp voice called from the living room.

“Ampelus,” Eros called back.

Aphrodite appeared instantly at the living room door, her mouth sloped down and her brow crinkled, one hand on her hip with her fingernails drumming on the bone. 

“It’s your day off, Dear,” she said in a clipped voice.

Ampelus glanced at Eros. He looked back helplessly.

Ampelus turned to Aphrodite and spoke nonchalantly. “I agreed to sketch Eros.” 

“Beg pardon?” Eros and Aphrodite said together.

“There’s a mortal that wants to build a statue of him. The muses have an idea for the pose, but they needed some more detail of his face before they put the design in the sculptor’s dream.”

Aphrodite smiled and flashed her eyes at Eros. “Well done, Baby Bear! Getting statues now!”

Eros shrugged.

“Well, off you pop.” Aphrodite winked and vanished back into the living room.

Eros rubbed his elbow. “Um, it’s kinda high school, but I have literally endless siblings. Wanna go to my room?”

Ampelus nodded.

[Shush, you.]

Watching Ampelus move tentatively around his bedroom stirred Eros in the pit of his stomach. She glanced at him, then slowly undid the button closing her crisp, white jacket and slid it carefully off. Her lithe, dark arms unveiled, spattered with black freckles. 

“At the risk of making this weird,” she said, “Aphrodite will ask to see the sketch.”

“Ah.” Eros thumbed his nose. “Yep.”

The series of apologetic chuckles and halting movements that settled them cross-legged opposite each other on the bed was nothing short of agony. But once Ampelus was sketching and Eros was watching her tulip-bud hand skate over the paper, a companionable calm enclosed them. Swallow song through the open window, and the scuff of her pencil on paper lulled them to relax.

“So.” Eros flicked his eyes playfully to Ampelus. “You’re a scary good liar.”

Ampelus laughed through her nose. “You have no idea.”

Eros frowned quizzically. 

Ampelus cut him off before he could probe, her mead-warm eyes meeting his over the notepad. “And you seem to be quite the secret keeper.”

“You have no idea.” Eros muttered.

She turned the pencil on its side and shaded a little around his jaw, accentuating its prominence, contrasting the softness of his brow. “Eros, why haven’t you told Aphrodite about this big surprise?”

Eros sighed and looked out of the window to his archery range and the orchard behind it. “It’s a dumb reason.”

“Try me.”

Eros interlaced his fingers over his ankles and twiddled his thumbs. “Because I trust him.” His voice drifted a little. “He’s a mess, he’s a real mess. But no matter what wreckage of daily interaction he leaves in his wake, he never seems to really get it wrong with Momma. Even when he gets it wrong, like really wrong, it just kinda ends up being right.”

Ampelus smiled, pricking a couple of beauty spots along paper-Eros’ cheekbone. “That’s a godly power I’d kill for.”

“Right?” Eros laughed. “I don’t know. He doesn’t exactly deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt. But, I just, sort of, do…” He trailed off.

Ampelus kept her eyes on her sketch, she ran her fingers over the lightly shaded cheek. “That’s something special. I hope you’re always the guy who gives people the benefit of the doubt.”

“Me too.” Eros smiled. “I mean, Fates know I need it.”

“No, you don't.” 

Eros looked up.

Ampelus looked up.

The swallows outside wheeled and whistled.

“Your parents…” Ampelus hesitated, she seemed to be measuring out her words. “They seem really into each other, but in a kind of strange way.”

Eros grimaced. “Good summary.”

“How did they meet?”

Eros leaned back on his hands and tilted his head. He sort of loved this story, but he was never sure how to tell it. “By accident. With a lot of bad decisions.”

Ampelus wrapped a thick ringlet round her finger, watching him.

“It really tore up the family,” Eros went on, a little distantly, “Dad was already on pretty poor terms with Gramps, but it destroyed his relationship with his older brother and set him and the king on a pretty dark path.” He glanced at Ampelus. “Momma was my uncle’s wife. But not by choice. She left him for Dad.”

Ampelus pressed her lips together. He fingers wrapped her pencil tightly.

“Try not to judge her too harshly,” Eros said, looking nervously at Ampelus from under his wisteria fringe. 

Ampelus’ full lips bloomed back from their tight press. “I don’t judge her at all. I…” She twisted the pencil, trying to stop her hands from trembling. Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. “I sympathise.”

“Of course.” Eros reached out to put his hand on hers, then drew it back. “I remember you saying, you went through something similar.”

Ampelus nodded. Her chest rose and fell and Eros caught a tremor in the sound of her breathing. He rubbed his wrist.

“A lot of people are OK in arranged marriages. Do you…” He swallowed. “Do you mind if I ask why you couldn’t go through with it?”

“I wanted to fall in love.”

Her answer was so simple, so doubtless. Eros’ whole body hummed. “And… Um… Did that happen for you?”

She twisted the pencil even tighter. She looked out of the window, the daylight lightening her deep eyes. She nodded again.

An ache stole into Eros' chest. 

“Was it worth it?” she asked suddenly, her brow furrowing, “Everything your parents went through to be together? Everything they did? Everyone they lost?”

“Well,” Eros shifted and flashed a grin, “They had me.”

The tension broke in Ampelus’ face. Her laugh was like rain after a long day of humidity. 

Eros laughed too, then sobered. “I don’t think they weighed and measured it like that. It wasn’t a case of gain versus loss, sin versus virtue. People only ever frame other people’s relationships in those terms. When it’s your own…” He heaved a sigh, putting his words together carefully, purposefully. “You just do it. Everything else is immaterial. Love isn’t one option among many, with a bunch of pros and cons, risks and rewards. It happens to you. And that’s that. You can run from it, you can refuse it, you can suffer for it. It’s still happening. It’s there now. It's remade you. So, I guess, they figured, in for a penny…”

“In for a penny…” she echoed under her breath.

“What I mean to say is...” Eros looked at his hands pensively. “Love isn’t a choice, it’s a calling. And they answered. And yeah, they’ve been through some serious shit, not just how they started, but everything, Dad’s job and all kinds of stuff. But if it calls you, and it doesn’t have to, but if it does, and you don’t answer, if you just let it ring in your body and don’t act on it, you’ll always be…”

She gazed into his eyes, hanging onto his words like a bat onto a twig. “Yes?”

“Incomplete.” 

“Incomplete…” she echoed him again.

“Isn’t that all any of us want?” Eros murmured, “To be whole?”

Their eyes rested on each other, rose and marigold. 

A breeze slipped through the window and ruffled their hair.

Eros broke from her eyes and drew his shoulders up, forcing his voice airy. “So, you’re seeing someone?”

She shook her head. His stomach flipped.

“I lost him,” she stated quietly, “I messed it up.”

This time Eros did take her hand. He didn’t have time to hesitate. His body moved for him and he folded his hand over hers. The warmth of her touch flowed up his arm and pooled in his chest. Her eyes widened on where their fingers met, then raised to him like two gilded planets in an orrery. 

“I don’t think there’s anything you could do that would make someone want to leave you forever,” he said softly, “If you know where this guy is, and he isn’t a total idiot, you should give it another shot.” He squeezed her hand and her lips parted and her breath stopped. He smiled, feeling his wings stirring on his shoulder blades. “Something tells me he isn’t ready to let you go.”

The swallows twittered and quavered, speckling the turquoise sky, their song too easy and light against the spreading silence in the inches between Eros and Ampelus.

Ampelus took a breath and it was loud in the close room. She turned her hand so her palm met Eros’ and her fingers curled gingerly around his. She wet her lip and it quivered. “Eros, I…”

Eros’ phone jangled.

Eros started and scrabbled in his pocket for it. Ampelus whipped her hand back and cradled it against her sternum. Eros clicked on speakerphone.

“Hey, Kiddo!” Ares’ brash, genial voice shot from the speaker.

“Dad!” All of Eros’ calm left him. “Where the fuck are you?”

“I’m setting up!” Ares boomed.

“Setting up _what?_ ”

“Ah, all in good time, Baby.”

“Have I mentioned yet today that I wish you’d left me on a temple doorstep?”

“Out loud? No. By text, three times. Is Ampelus there?”

“I’m here, Sir.” Ampelus piped.

“You shining star!” Ares sounded distastefully confident for a man AWOL on his anniversary.

“Dad, what’s going on? What’s the plan?” Eros hissed urgently into the receiver, his knuckles white as he clutched his phone, as if throttling his father. “Momma’s jumping at shadows, she’s looking up locksmiths, she broke a lamp. She’s not happy, Dad! And when Momma’s not happy, no one in a five mile radius is happy!”

“Cool your jets, Kid. Trust me.”

“I do not trust you!” Eros snapped.

Ampelus looked at him with warm amusement.

“Sure you do!” Ares barked.

Eros could hear Ares’ infuriating grin and bristled. “Do you get anger highs over the phone now? Are you doing this on purpose?”

“No…” Ares replied unconvincingly, “Anyway, listen up.”

Ampelus leaned dutifully over the speaker, Eros grit his teeth.

“I need you to get Momma all dolled up, like ready for something real fancy, like the kind of thing she would never go to with me.”

They nodded.

“Then I need you to get her to Mytikas.”

“Mytikas?” Eros blinked in surprise. “The restaurant at the peak of the mountain?”

“That’s the one.” 

Eros and Ampelus exchanged a look. 

“Once you’re there, tell them that you’re here for Hera’s party.”

“Only way you could get a table?”

“Something like that.” Ares clucked his tongue. “Nine o’clock. But don’t tell your Ma she’s coming to meet me.”

Eros groaned. “Fine.” He glanced at Ampelus. “We’ll figure something out.”

“You’re the best, Kiddo.”

“You are not.”

Ares laughed and hung up the phone.

Ampelus flexed her fingers and twirled the pencil in them. “Mytikas? Is that a special place?”

“It is _the_ place.” Eros answered. “It’s so exclusive, it’s almost only used by the kings and visiting dignitaries. It has like five tables and they’re all always booked up months in advance.”

“But, even with family issues, Ares is still a prince, isn’t he?” Ampelus said.

“Not a popular one,” Eros sighed, “He is such a burden on my social prospects.”

Ampelus laughed and cuffed his arm. His heart thumped and his face flushed. He blinked at her, then cleared his throat.

She smoothed her hair. “Why did he need me involved?”

Eros rolled his tongue. He was only too well aware of why Ares had decided it was imperative that Ampelus hang out privately with Eros for a good hour before he even commenced his plan. The meddler.

Eros spread his hands, then fluttered a teasing look at Ampelus. “Guess he knew I’d need a good liar.”

[We told her Isis was visiting Hera and had brought Hathor along. They were all going to Mytikas together, and Hathor had called Ampelus to say she’d managed to get Momma invited. First, it was “I don’t need Hathor to be my meal ticket, I can go to Mytikas whenever I please.” Then it was “This is such ridiculous short notice, I bet she did that on purpose because she knew I’d have plans and be put in a bind. Or because she knew if I came, I’d be admitting I didn’t have plans on a Saturday night.” Then it was “I bet she doesn’t even want me there, so she invited me too short notice to be able to come.” And then it was “I bet she does want me there, but with too little time to get ready, so I show myself up.” 

We let her run out of steam and then Ampelus, the devious little madam, said, all innocent, “Did you have plans tonight, My Lady?”

Well, Momma looked like she might turn into steam and lightning. Ampelus just faces her, cool as a cucumber. I’m getting ready to jump between them. Then Momma just fixes her face and says, “No plans.” And goes upstairs to get ready.

I am super spooked by how good Ampelus is at lying.]

Eros had spent his teens with his nose in magazines, gazing at pictures of the sparkling creatures floating in and out of the sleek glass doors of Mytikas and fantasising about the day he would join them. He did not expect it to be as part of some scheme of his Disaster Dad’s. He had to keep reminding himself that he and Ampelus were only dropping Momma off, having begged to be allowed to fly up with her, so they could at least glimpse the legendary dining spot. He chortled with Ampelus the whole way there about the foods they would try to sneak off people’s plates, while they were distracted by fancy conversations about economics or fashion or picking a hero to patronise. He settled on the roast duck drizzled in dark chocolate, she got over-faced by his complete recitation of the menu and asked what was the closest thing to mac and cheese. Eros figured it was the venison ravioli with Gruyere. 

Aphrodite stepped elegantly through the air beside them, the evening sky in a breath-taking sweep of orange and amethyst behind her, her hair in a high ponytail, spilling from a gold coil in an eddying lavender waterfall, her wrists tinkling with gold bangles, and the sharp heels of her gold, stiletto sandals whisking shreds of low-lying, periwinkle cloud. Her dress was black velvet and trickled down her body to her ankles, a long slit up one side to the hip showing a flash of her dusky thigh, that threw more than one fellow flying god off course.

When they landed, her hair and her dress swirled around her and her fierce, daggering eyes turned the doorman from a grass to forest green in his blush. 

Eros touched down beside her and tried to ignore the pang in his chest, as Ampelus’ thighs slipped from round his waist and her warmth left his back. His hand moved instinctively towards her as their bodies separated. He realised what he was doing and folded his arms tightly.

Behind them, the mountain tumbled down into a bed of evening cloud, washed pastel watercolours and spiralling leisurely around the summit. Before them, Art Deco letters shone in white-gold lights over the looming, dark glass door set into the rock face: _Mytikas. The Height of Fine Dining._

“That pun is beneath them.” Aphrodite scoffed, looking at the sign with derision.

Eros bounced on the balls of his feet, his delight continually stabbed with terror every time he remembered his Dad’s overly confident and somehow still cagey voice. If the surprise was just he booked a table here, the suspense seemed a bit much.

The doorman inclined his head and let them through. Eros’ eyes widened and sparkled ruby, as they stepped out of the cool mountain air. Mytikas was a round room, hewn through the rock and encircled with glass panels, flooded the colour of ripe grapefruit by the last flare of the setting sun. Through the windows, if they squinted through the stunning blaze, the lush, dramatic mountains and valleys of Thessaly and Macedonia rolled out into glistening blue-topaz seas, miles away but brought to the tips of their fingers by the heart-stopping view. The room itself was all sleek dark wood and fluting vases of opulent white - brushes of acanthus and flurries of roses. A bar dazzled with expensive wines and spirits, catching the evening rays. Nymphs walked soundlessly among the tables, serving the chic, shining clientele, seemingly without having to be addressed. A mouth-watering medley of food scents blanketed them instantly - saffron and vanilla, basil and cardamom, port-stewed pear, minted lamb melting off the bone, braised brown sugar, whiskey sauce, watery asparagus, tangy lemon oozing over steaming swordfish.

Eros’ hands flew to his face and he was struck utterly speechless. 

A lilac nymph in a square-shouldered, black dress glided up to them. “Do you have a reservation?” she asked formally.

Aphrodite was not used to being asked if she had a reservation, and she was clearly not in the mood for it now. Her eyebrow arched dangerously. Eros tried to speak, but he was trembling and his eyes couldn’t keep from roving longingly around the room. 

Ampelus chuckled behind her hand. “We’re with Hera’s party.”

A look of understanding passed across the nymph’s face. She nodded cordially. “Right this way.”

She did not take them to a table. She led them away from the main room of the restaurant, Ampelus having to drag the enthralled Eros by his elbow, and through a side door to an elevator. She pushed the button and the chrome doors opened smoothly.

“All the way to the top,” she said, her eyes twinkling.

Aphrodite frowned, but thanked her brusquely and clipped into the elevator. Eros and Ampelus followed. The doors closed. 

Aphrodite huffed and pressed the top floor button.

“You didn’t have to come all the way to the table with me,” she said pointedly.

“But it’s _Mytikas,_ ” Eros insisted, “We may never be allowed back!”

Aphrodite shook her head in resignation and drummed her fingers on her hip. “Mytikas or not, this evening is going to be a literally royal pain in the ass.” She pursed her lips. “Hera’s passive aggression is matched only be Hathor’s, and I can’t even get drunk because it will just make them worse.” She clucked her tongue and blew out through her nostrils, her shimmered cheeks puffing. “I shouldn’t even be doing diplomatic ass-kissing today, I should be…”

She trailed off. Eros and Ampelus looked at her. 

She met their eyes proudly and finished with a prim strain in her voice. “I should be out with the Graces, it’s a Saturday.”

Ampelus saw the tension sneak back into Eros, now they were cut off from the enchantment of the restaurant. She stroked the small of his back. He darted his eyes to her. He pulled his gaze back to his mother. Behind her hard, vain expression, he could see something else. The look of a fox with a thorn in its paw. He took a deep breath and slipped his hand behind him and crossed his fingers.

The elevator thunked.

The doors parted.

Eros’ jaw dropped.

The scene unveiled before them was no upper restaurant floor. They were on the roof. The cool air swept them and a vast, dizzying canopy of stars flooded their vision. The roof was tiled and flat, stretching out to the incredible view with a glass railing all around the edge. But the floor was barely visible under a crowd of pots and vases, overflowing with rich, blue mountain flowers - dainty veronica, clustering aubrieta, jostling bellflower. Eros’ eyes ran over the lagoon of petals, like a painter’s palette, and met a small, round table under an archway of red roses and yellow fairy lights, flanked by potted myrtle bushes. In a large, gilded cage to the left, two doves cooed low and nuzzled each other’s plumage. To the right, a large boxy speaker hummed and broke into a lilting, strumming harp melody.

Aphrodite froze. 

Eros shuffled her out of the elevator and the three of them gazed around the scene. Eros’ mouth slack, Ampelus’ eyes wide, Aphrodite looking ready to pounce on some innocent prey animal in the flowers.

“Hey, Cougar.”

A warm, gravelly voice rolled along the rooftop, riding the fresh breeze. 

Ares emerged from the shadows on a crescendo of the harp, hair somewhat neat, navy tux soaking up the warm fairy lights and making him look like he was inked onto the backdrop of stars. His golden glimmer replaced the last tendrils of sunlight as they sank into the sea glistening behind him.

He walked in front of the table and smiled the most infuriating smile Eros had ever seen. And that was up against serious competition from this guy.

“Happy Anniversary, Beautiful,” he said, his tiger-lily gaze blooming over Aphrodite.

Aphrodite took a shaking breath, her hands falling from her hips. “W… Wha…”

Ares grinned and clapped his hands together and spread them in a showman flourish. His laughing voice boomed across the bellflowers, shaking their cups. “You get it? It's the ultimate prank! You thought I forgot, I've been planning this for fucking months!” He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled at her like a hooligan. “SUCK IT.”

Eros' wings shot out and cooped him and Ampelus in a protective cocoon. He opened a couple of gaps in his feathers for them to peek through.

Aphrodite took Ares' words in slowly. She lifted her finger to her lips and glared at him over the point. When she spoke she was deathly quiet. “OK. Let me get this straight.” She drew her fingertip along her mouth. “I have put up with your bullshit for. Five. Hundred. Years. I have given birth to your children. I have supported your work away. I have been loyal, loving, faithful…”

“Faithful-ish.” Ares smirked.

“And on this,” she continued frostily, “The day of our fifth centenary as lovers, bonded in our souls...” She took a steadying breath. “You torture me for a _week_. Then you greet me with the words, and I quote, ‘Suck it’?”

“Pretty great, huh?” Ares bounced his eyebrows, somehow showing even more of his teeth. “Happy Five Hundo, Babe!”

Eros winced.

Ampelus drew his feathers closer around her.

Aphrodite’s lower lip vanished into her mouth. Her eyes closed and she bent her head and shook it. A tremor went through her shoulders. Her hands balled at her sides. 

Eros watched her with his stomach knotting.

_Here it comes. I’m about to be 50% orphaned._

Aphrodite heaved in a sob.

_Oh, Momma, please don’t cry. If she cries, I’ll kill him._

She raised her head, her eyes illuminated by starlight pooling in her tears. She glared at Ares hard enough to knock him off the roof.

“Honey Bear!" She choked on another sob. "I love you so much!”

She sprang forward and pelted through the air, flying into his arms, as a bounding, wild laugh flung from his belly and he caught her and spun her round, beaming so bright the fairy lights dimmed. She threw her legs around his waist, caught up his face and planted a long, adoring kiss onto his mouth as he laughed into it, squeezing her tight to his body.

Eros’ wings dropped and he stared in shock. “WHAT?”

Aphrodite sucked Ares’ lip and strangled his waist with her thighs, her dress streaming as he kept staggering and spinning her.

“It WORKED?”

Ares pulled from her mouth and peppered her face and neck with kisses, as she caterwauled in a fit of giggles.

Eros clutched his hair. “HOW ARE YOU FINE WITH THIS? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?”

Aphrodite bedded her fingernails in the back of Ares’ muscular neck and murmured to him, except horribly audibly. “I am gonna suck it later. I'm gonna blow your tiny, brilliant mind, you gorgeous hunk of man meat.”

“MOMMA!”

Ares growled and hoisted her closer around him. “Mmmph, don't get me hard, these pants are already tight.”

“DAD!”

Ampelus was clearly smiling, but she tried to contain it and patted his arm.

Ares called over Aphrodite’s shoulder as she hugged him and nibbled his ear. “You might wanna leave, Kiddo, things are gonna get raunchy up here!”’

Eros’ feathers ruffled and braced. “I DO WANT TO LEAVE! FOREVER!”

Ares ignored him, drawn captive back to Aphrodite as she moved her head back to meet his flaming eyes again, her own electric and wildly joyous.

“Just you wait for dessert…” He rumbled. “They've made us a special selection of syrups to try, and we get to take home any we like to drizzle all over your incredible tits.”

“PERMANENT EMOTIONAL SCARS!” Eros railed. His wings drooped and he rubbed his temples, as his parents continued to murmur filth to each other under the sparkling arch.

Ampelus patted his arm again. “At least they’re happy.”

“Hmph.” Eros kept up his massage.

“Shall we leave them to it? Go get normal mac and cheese?” 

Eros swivelled his exhausted gaze to Ampelus. She glimmered in the starlight, her eyes liquid and her mouth glossy. He felt his wings and his shoulders smooth. “Yes, please.”

Across the lake of mountain flowers, enveloped in dove song and harp music, Aphrodite and Ares gazed into each other’s eyes.

“Aph?” Ares pecked her nose, still holding her up around his waist.

“Yeah?” She pecked his nose too, settling into the sling of his arms.

“Were you mad at me this week?”

Her smile flowed over her face and fizzed. “Furious, my love.”

Ares bit his lip, mischief playing in the corner of his mouth. “Good,” he whispered, “Do me a favour and hold onto that for a sec.”

She cocked her head, but kissed his cheek in acquiescence. “OK…” she purred, lowering her lips to his ear and snaking her tongue around it, “You make me madder than the pit of Tartarus, than Pan on a rampage, than the day I was born from the very first act of wrath from the Titan King of Rage himself.”

Ares’ eyes rolled back into his head. He turned his face into her neck and let her perfume carry him away. “You make my heart beat faster than when I’m in the throws of battle, your kiss is better than victory, your body is more thrilling than combat, your absence hurts more than defeat, than sword wounds. You remade what passion was for me. You defined love for the rest of my eternity. You make me crazy, Goddess of Love.”

She pressed her cheek to his hair. “You make me crazy, God of War.”

They kissed deeply.

A pulse went through the mountain.

Eros and Ampelus, just turning away, felt it thrum in the soles of their feet. They turned back.

Eros peered curiously at his parents. They seemed to be glimmering, glowing, light the colour of their bodies undulating around them. Ampelus grabbed his arm. He turned to her and saw she was pointing, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, at the sky.

He raised his face.

All across the sky, waves of a strange, celestial light surged in veils over the stars. Ripples of violet and sunflower, like dyes plunging through water, like neon lamps through mist. The rays and ribbons of light whipped and whirled and wove. They pulsed in lilac and indigo, clementine and scarlet. They made mazes of new pathways between the constellations, rainbows in ice, shadows in mirrors, enchanting, stilling time, creating the heady feeling of falling through some portal into dream. The heavens erupted and reformed in a living, chaotic, ecstatic reflection of the eternal love of Ares and Aphrodite. 

Ares broke the kiss and looked up. His face shattered into a triumphant grin and he spun Aphrodite again, wobbling on his heel. “Shit, yes! It worked!”

Aphrodite clung to him and squeaked. Then steadied herself and followed his eye. Her breath escaped her. Her mouth dropped open and she stared in amazement at the waves of light soaring across the stars, repainting the firmament in their colours. Her heart stopped. The world fell away. There was nothing now in the universe, except her and Ares. The stars said it was so.

“You… You did this.” Her voice was faint, as if coming from elsewhere.

Ares kissed her cheek, still gazing up. “Not exactly. I talked to Hecate. Fucking frightening bitch, but she said that if gods came together at the peak of the mountain, closer to the stars than they’d ever been, and exchanged their powers freely, this could happen.”

Aphrodite blinked through a burgeoning haze of tears to keep drinking in the spectacular sight. Understanding chimed in her and she smiled wide. “So you had to make me angry with you,” she whispered.

“Furious,” he chuckled, “And I had to be passionately in love with you.” He nuzzled her jaw. “Which was easy as fuck.”

“You…” Every inch of her body was alive with emotion. Her heart swelled in her chest and ached. She quivered in her bone, glowed in her flesh, bubbled in her belly. Her hand floated to her mouth and covered it in awe. “I don’t… You… This…” Her voice came fractured and wispy, tiny bursts of feeling from her overflowing being. "Oh, Ares…" 

Eros gazed up at the night. His heart warmed in his chest and he took a deep breath of the fresh, thin, floral air and felt every strain and sadness rush from his body in one sweeping exhale. 

Ampelus stared, her head teeming with hopes. She rocked sideways and sank into the sweet nearness of Eros beneath this cosmic celebration of love, love in the face of everything, love that conquers all and laughs the pain of the battle away.

Their fingers interlaced.

Ares turned from the mesmerising sky. His pupils stayed full of stars, as he looked worshipfully at Aphrodite, cuddling her close against the coolness and breathing her scent, more vital to him than oxygen. 

He rested his lips against her ear and whispered to her, as he had done that first night, that moment his life had irrevocably changed. “Let us take our delight together.”

She turned to him, her face a hypnotic butterfly array of happiness and wonder and desire. She dropped her brow to his and wound her fingers into his hair. The tattoo on her thigh inked darker in rippling shadow. 

“Forever,” she whispered.

Their lips met and melted into passion and joy.

Their shimmering colours swept across the night and rained down over Olympus.

[So, you glad you stuck out the entire story?

Today’s been pretty peaceful. No one was even awake when Momma and Dad got home, I think it might have been pretty much dawn. They’re still sleeping in. At least, that’s what I’m telling the kids they’re up to. 

OK, I’ll admit it. Their total lack of personal boundaries grates my last nerve. But they have their moments. With the mangle my love life went through this year, it’s actually kinda nice being around it, you know? They remind me what love is meant to look like: messy and mundane and miracle-working. 

I know, I should write that down, right?

Anyway, you pretty pomegranate, I gotta go. I’m meeting Ampelus for dinner.

No, come on, don’t start.

She did say she wants to tell me something, though. So, um… Let’s see, I guess. Maybe. Since last night, I’ve been feeling… I don’t know… Ready for the unpredictable.

OK, kiss Pomelia for me!

And wish me luck.

You never know what’s coming.]

**Author's Note:**

> Shameless plug! If you enjoyed Ares and Aphrodite being cute idiots and you find me at all as amusing as I find myself, look out for my coming definitely-too-long fic "All's Fair in Love and War" - a prequel Aredite RomCom!


End file.
